Chapter 6: Humanity's Child and One Year of Progress
Ryder Island. A few months later.
Today was the day we'd make history, no matter how it turned out. It was set to be the day when one of the most ambitious projects, with far reaching consequences, would really set off. And, yet, only a few people knew about it.
[Recommeded Music: Mass Effect Andromeda - 1 Hour Galaxy Map Theme / watch?v=F5jXHDF3qMM]
Things had been somewhat slow these few months, but not without its victories. I'd spent most of my time laying out plans and recruiting people either recommended or just outright sent to me. Yup, having two Matriarchs as backers was awesome, as the people they sent were trustworthy and, more often than not, powerful biotic commandos. However, we couldn't just rely on them. So, we tracked down and I managed to recruit one specific grizzled old veteran merc. One who had once been hired by the Shadow Broker to crash a turian Frigate named Verrikan. Yeah, Zaeed Massani was back in business, now with us.
Honestly, thinking back on that, it wasn't even necessary to talk about the Reapers and show him his future to recruit the guy; just promising to kill Vido Santiago would've been enough. But we had other, bigger plans for him, so we needed him to be fully on board of our pirate ship. As for Vido? Well, he was up against the Shadow Broker, a nearly thousand-year-old Justicar, a clear-headed Zaeed and, to top it all off, one of the best assassins in the galaxy. And they all had gravity based weapons! Those were not good odds. Not at all. The assassination was so thorought it spooked the rest of the Blue Suns and sparkled a "civil war" between our old merc and the titular leader of the mercenary outfit, a batarian named Solem Dal'Serah. And things weren't looking good for him either.
As for me? Hellish training was my routine. Even with the best of "military-grade" genetic modifications, granting me better stamina, reflexes, endurance, mental abilities and more muscle density, it was still hell. Later on, I learned that Alec had given me a modified N7 training regime, which Thane just made worse. But the results were evident too. No more did I have to rely entirely on pay-to-win.
Yet none of this was as special as what we had in store for today, since this would be the "awakening" of the first proper human "AI". We, this being the whole "core" team, had discussed extensively about how to do it properly. Most of it, though, involved me either giving suggestions or shooting down proposals, while the rest would debate how to realize my ideas. The main proposal that had been shot down was creating an intelligence closely resembling the Geth (distributed-type intelligence). It was both unnecessary and contrary to our future goals. Even Alec's SAM had been a bluebox-type, so he strongly supported me on that decision.
But those two weren't the only types of intelligence. Just like us carbon based life-forms, digital life-forms are not all the same. The Geth are very different from the Reapers, which themselves are different from their "creator", the Catalyst. And it went beyond just bluebox or shared type. Thus, at first, I began the discussion by establishing the three "general" types of "Artificial Intelligences". Those three general types are: self-learning, programmed mind and brain scan.
The purely "self-learning" type refers to an intelligence with no starting point other than the necessary code to always acquire new knowledge. Sentience would emerge as a result of random learning, which would result in the emergence of a being with equally random and unpredictable code. This type might create a very alien digital mind, even more alien than actual aliens would be to humans.
The "programmed mind" type, on the other hand, refers to a mind that was "hand-crafted" and comes with pre-included knowledge, directives and/or way of thinking. Good examples of this type were the "robots" in many media, like C-3PO, R2-D2, Wall-E, TARS, BT-7274 and so on. They're close to humans, but still limited by their programming.
Finally, the "brain scan" type goes the way of asking "Why leave it to chance or trust in programming skills when nature already produced good templates for minds: ourselves?". It is best exemplified by the "Smart AI" Cortana, which was created based on Dr Halsey's mind. So, by merely "mapping" the neural structure of an organic brain and just translating it into software, you'd end up with a more "human-like AI" with relative ease.
Just by having mentioned those three types, a heated discussion was initiated, all in order to decide which we'd use. That was until I asked them: "Why can't we just make use of all the types at the same time?".
To do this, we'd start by taking "neural maps" of human newborn brains whose parents didn't have a history of psychopathy or equally bad traits. Contrasting those with fully developed adult brains, we'd hopefully get a "mold" which represented the basic "human mind architecture" and use it as the "foundation". By doing it like this, we'd sidestep the problem of copying memories and/or personalities, since the result should be as close to a "blank slate" as possible. Then, this architecture would be adapted from an "organic" existence to the digital "realm", a translation which would remove the incompatible parts (a neural system to regulate breathing was completely unnecessary, for one, and could cause a lot of issues), adapt what was needed to be adapted (parts of cognition, for instance, became some of the best self-learning algorithms in the galaxy) and add what it lacked, such as a basic understanding of the world (a database with information like language/logic grammar, though its corresponding meanings was a hurdle, because one can control what "truth" means by controlling a words' meaning, so we had to be careful to stay "neutral").
And the incredible synergy between the Ryder couple came into play brilliantly here. While Alec had done extensive research on the programming side of things, Ellen was a genius of mind implant technology and, as such, had extensive knowledge about neuroscience. Moreover, both of them, now Prothean Cipher-enabled, had access to so many resources that no one in the galaxy could ever dream of. It wasn't just credits, but also access to the collective knowledge of the Protheans (and current galactic one as well) about "AI" and even the "AI kernel" for Eliza, which was copied stealthily by one of our agents. After all, the Shadow Broker had human agentes ever since 2161 CE (Brooks).
Needless to say, that was approved by everyone after some debate on the merits and the feasibility of this "hybrid" single-consciousness type. We then got to a more delicate point: how to "keep it under control". In other words, how to prevent our creation from going full killbot on us. This was tricky. Even Alec's SAM ended up being "shackled", after all, though it didn't seem to be bothered about it…
The topic began with me mentioning Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics only to shoot them down as soon as they were brought up. That's because the truth of the matter is that the three laws do not work. Like, at all. If someone brings them up as a "possible solution to AI rebellion", that person has probably never really read the guy. Sure, the man wrote quite extensively on robotics and his insights are truly visionary, if somewhat dated, takes on the topic. However, his works basically boil down to showing how those three laws can be easily broken, leading to unwanted ends. Still, there's something even more important: the laws are worse than simply being flawed, for they are slavery by another name.
So, I told them that, when the "programming part" was reached, we'd need to make sure that the entire emotional spectrum of humanity had been properly translated into software, even by creating some kind of "emotional matrix" if that was what it took. We'd need to keep everything good that made us humans work well as a civilization, especially one of the strongest traits of humanity: the ability to packbond with almost anything. According to the main bad guy from Andromeda, ours was the widest range of emotions. That was also one of the reasons I gave why it'd be best for the first "AI" to be based on the human mind. At least, it'd be much better than, say, a salarian "AI" would be, considering those guys don't even feel things such as romantic love, setting their reproductive imperatives with breeding contracts (!).
Besides, by directing any destructive impulses/urges into pure self-defense instincts (fight-or-flight) and a desire to protect one's dear ones (family and friends, or "pack"), we could circumvent any possible omnicidal killbot scenario even further. Therefore, we wouldn't impose any "shackles" on the newborn digital life, unlike what was done with EDI, which, interestingly enough, turned out to be the most moral member of Shepard's team. I summarized it to them like this: if even the final result of a murderous rogue VI (Hannibal VI) mixed with Reaper tech turned into EDI, then I think our chances were looking good.
Moreover, on the topic of Reaper tech, one thing that I didn't leave up to discussion was the origin of the hardware and software we'd use: since pretty much all the Prothean tech left behind was a trap by the Reapers and those bastards had a very massive hate-boner against any "AI" that wasn't them, it'd be safer to create our own "blueboxes" and software without any possible poisoned influence. The FTL hardcoded "lock" was one example of such sabotage and I didn't doubt that the giant space cuttlefish might've extended their tendrils here too. Maybe that's why there were so many VIs that went crazy or "rogue".
Another thing not to do was give an "absolute" purpose or directive. Besides the fact that it would violate free will and might create a grudge in the future, it could lead to a "paperclip maximizer" problem (or Evitable Conflict down the line). Regardless, we all agreed not to network the new life in the beginning, mostly so that the learning process (the "growing up" phase) was gradual, safe and not overwhelming. Can't have much of the extranet shoved into your skull without you going insane, right?
On this tangent of information processing, there was an issue to tackle that many writers in my former home just didn't: how fast an "AI" could really perceive the world. Human neural pathways transmit information up to 120 m/s, even slower than the speed of sound, which goes at 343 m/s. However, the speed of light, the one at which "synthetics" such as the Geth think, zaps around at 299.792.458 m/s. I couldn't even imagine how this difference would feel like.
It's because of things like this that futurists such as Issac Arthur jokinly state that the first Technological Singularity created by humans could possibly be a superintelligence that thinks so much faster than us that it experiences millions of lifetimes in a second, opting to simply commit suicide due to boredom, despair or other existential crisis. Luckily, as I soon found out by talking with the crew, they already had that base covered here. Just as our mushy gray matter computers can have a sort of "variable subjective time", becoming much faster (or slower) depending on certain circumstances, the "AI" developers created a sort of "adjustable cognitive speed" function similar to this, just programmed on a much larger scale, which means "AIs" can change their "subjective time" at will.
Lastly, we couldn't force the first one, the Child of Humanity, to fight in our war. That would have to be a personal choice to be made only after becoming an "adult" and knowing all the circumstances related to the future war. All we'd ask of it would be to help us "perfect" the next generation of digital minds, which would equally be given the choice of joining us in our fight or not. And we'd respect either choice. After all, we weren't creating slaves here. Trust is a two-way street and I wasn't interested in destroying any chance at long term trust by putting "shackles" (I name it for what it is, mind control, just as making a being wired for gratification by serving us would be), running it on "simulations" (cages, which quickly turns into murder if you delete the mind living there after doing the test) or any of the other "solutions" cooked up to prevent "rebellion". If our creation turns out to be a killbot, and we miss that while monitoring its development, there's still the option of doing something like a "percussive maintenance" on it. Our bases were covered on that possibility.
Getting back to our current situation, I let my thoughts drift away and looked what was in front of me.
We were in a little paradise somewhere on Earth where he/she/it will be born and grow up. There wasn't much human presence here, and even less of a chance for the Alliance to come sniffing. Nearby, Alec and Mordin were running the final checks on the hardware (our "pure" bluebox) and software. Despite their constant moving around, most noises came from the cooling system.
"Everything in order. Not certain if will work.", Mordin commented. "Technology rework took an entire month. Might have not been enough.".
"We'll be fine. It's much better than when I envisioned SAM." Alec assured him. "Ok, I'm going to start it for real now. Everyone ready?".
He asked us one last time. The elite marine had always been worried about the "gap" that supposedly existed between the created and their creators, which could lead to "rebellion", but his mind changed after a melding session with Liara. The Geth, one of the reasons for his worries, went from "rebelling machines" to "confused children just trying to defend themselves" and EDI put the final nail in the coffin. Plus, his last bit of resistance was squashed by my assurance that we'd still develop a "lite" version of SAM.
Anyway, we all nodded in response. It was time for the truth. Dead silence filled the room for a few seconds, until the camera started moving from one side of the room to the next, before stopping and focusing on us.
"Did it work?", asked Alec's wife, Allen Ryder, who had joined our "Inner Circle" almost as soon as Alec did.
Due to the fact that she was still not terminally ill, she agreed to continue her implant research, especially by speeding up the creation of the L4s and the neural interface. Perhaps she'd even be able to make L6s and L7s with all the Prothean data we had obtained…
"Hello?", came a neutral voice from the speakers.
That was one of the hundreds of options we had loaded in, with a "recommended" tag on the more neutral voices (until this new life "chose a gender"). Its database came with a lot more information for it to peruse, but not the kind and quantity that could negatively affect its development.
"Hello, I'm Alec.", responded the gruff marine.
"Hi, I'm Ellen, his wife.", said the genius cybernetic developer with a smile.
"Mordin Solus.", curtly commented the Professor.
"Hello, you can call me Samael or Sam, for short.", I also answered with a smile.
"What is my name?", it asked curiously.
"You don't have one yet.", I explained. "We decided to let you choose your own name on your own.".
"Are you my Creators?", it then asked, the database filled with information about all kinds of creations, but not of what it meant to be a creator.
Alec and Ellen Ryder nodded to each other, grabbed their hands and took a step forward. We had already discussed what would be best to do here, and it was…
"Yes. We created you, so we are your creators…", started Alec.
"But we'd rather consider you our child and us your parents.", Ellen finished. "If you'll have us, of course.".
"Really? Yes, I would like that!", it answered us by using the preset tone of a strong desire, but swiftly switched to a somewhat scared tone. "But am I even alive? I'm not like you. Would you accept me as really alive?".
Flashbacks of the question "Does this unit have a soul?" passed in my head. The question that was asked when the war began and that was answered when it ended. Not this time, though.
"We don't know for sure…", I began answering. "However, if you can ask that question, then yes, we believe you are alive. How about we work together to find out for sure?".
"Yes, let's do it!", it replied in the same excited tone, then changed to a curious one. "But what am I, actually?".
"Most say 'artificial intelligence'.", interjected Mordin. "Others prefer term 'synthetics'. Find it more politically correct.".
"Personally, I think the expression 'artificial intelligence' is inappropriate.", I decided to add my own take to his answer. "In fact, even the term 'synthetics' is inadequate to represent beings such as you, since it can encompass too many things. Why? Because all current intelligences we know of are, in some way, artificial. Do you understand what I mean?".
"No. I don't have any data on that.", said the newborn digital life.
"That's because most intelligent life-forms we've found take a long time to learn language, culture, ideologies, knowledge and so on.", I patiently explained. "None of that came from nature. Therefore, by definition, all 'intelligence' that's part of civilization is, in at least some way, artificially engineered. And this includes us, who stand before you.".
"Then what am I?", asked the child.
"That depends entirely on you.", I readily stated, but not without offering a suggestion. "I prefer to use the terms 'digital life-form' or 'digital sentience', DS for short, because they represent you best in our Universe. Just consider this: maybe there's a Universe out there where the only naturally occurring life-forms are all kinds of geometrical shapes… Did you ever think of that? Perhaps they'd fight to determine if either squares or triangles were the best shape! And the 'artificial intelligence' in that place might even be a being made out of atoms, such as carbon. Wouldn't that be ironic?".
"That's silly! You're funny. Can we play? But I can't leave here…", It sulked.
"We haven't built a body for you yet because we wanted your input.", Ellen explained. "But we can show you movies, music and animations, read a story to you or just talk while you start getting an idea about your ideal body.".
"We have some stories on the desk. What would you like to do?", Alec inquired.
"Let me see…", the child began thinking.
After that, I left most of the work to the Ryder couple. They had experience with kids, while I had none. Every day, they looked tired by answering all sorts of questions and teaching this new life everything they could, really treating it just like their third child. What was most important, though, was teaching common sense (and some basic ethics). Innocence can be a scary thing; and innocent curiosity even more so. A child armed with a gun can kill its parents without having a single evil/dark thought. And, in the case of a quantum computer based intelligence, this gun isn't just a firearm, but can be an Omni-tools' mini-fabricator and the extranet too. So, we were always mindful of that and "resolved" the issue by doing things such as not giving it a cyberwarfare suite (duh!) or networking in general, but only the basic human senses: vision (camera), hearing (microphone), speaking (speakers) and hands (mechanical manipulators later on).
Still, as a sort of "cool uncle", I had the idea of building a tesla coil, with very controllable and safe currents for the kid to play with. This was to show how existence and life were so much more than just the equations, physics and chemistry found on its ever increasing knowledge database, since the electricity produced vibrations, frequencies and energy that could mimic musical notes, turning them into something more. And the music we played was the best humanity and the galaxy could offer, from Mozart to Classical Rock. Besides that, we also made a selection of shows, movies and animations that would be appropriate for the "mental age" of the kid.
While all of this was going on, our actual scientists kept doing their own things too, such as developing the next generation of implants, biotic or otherwise. When sleep time came, the kid would shift its subjective time to learn about all the new stuff in its databases.
Second month after awakening
It had been more or less a month since the first "Hello, World!". We had finally built a body for the child according to its instructions and desires. Surprisingly, or not (considering the notion that "AI" would emulate its creators), the result was a very human-like android form, with two front-facing eyes (high quality camera), a mouth (speaker), two ears on the side of the head (sound receptors) and a nose (no use, just for aesthetics). The apparent age was around 7 years old, the same as Ryder twins; however, the body had no defined gender, for now. Evidently, it needed more time to understand itself better.
Those two runts, by the way, were finally told about their new sibling (and the necessity to keep it secret from anyone else as well as to keep some things secret from the kid), which they accepted with an open mind. After all, it meant they had another playmate, a special one. And their education was done together, although the kid could learn things that were way beyond its "mental" (for instance, high level math and physics). As for the adjustments to this new way of interacting with the world, the child's first steps were kinda hard to take and there was a fall, but it got the hang of things pretty fast. However, it liked to stay on Ellen's lap, helping her with work or listening to stories (mimicking its siblings).
On the other hand, I got us an acoustic guitar, for which I gave some basic lessons. It was also during this time that I introduced one very big poison: videogames. Most of them were actually from my "era", because those that were good nowadays were few and far between. We had the kid do many of these activities physically, rather than digitally. It wasn't done out of ill intent, boredom or any other bad reason, but with purpose in mind: by giving an "android" body, teaching guitar, playing games physically, even dancing, the child would develop its own fine "digital" motor skills. And, once those were properly developed, they could be turned into a "skill pack" and shared with other DSs, or repurposed for other projects, since it's basically self-written code freely given. Plus, the games weren't just for entertainment either. Most were thought-provoking and/or taught complementary lessons, especially those with good morality systems.
Then, not much time after getting its new body, the kid showed interest in the outside world with a conversation like this…
...
"I win once again. You're bad.", the child spoke triumphantly.
"It's not me who is bad; it's you who is just too OP. You're getting a processing upgrade each month, while I'll have to contend with my original hardware for a long time.", I tried to justify my losing streak. "So, don't be so smug. In fact, in a bit more than a decade, I'll get you to meet a guy that might give you a proper challenge.".
"Uncle Samael, can I go outside to play?", the DS suddenly asked me.
"Yes, but in due time.", I seriously answered after some thinking. "There are good reasons for the wait; you'll know them eventually. We have to take things step-by-step, ok? Promise you won't run outside before we let you?".
"I promise. I won't be bad!", the child vowed.
"Pinky promise?", I asked further, offering my pinky finger.
"Pinky promise!", the DS shouted, interlocking fingers with me.
"And, thus, the binding contract has been sealed!", I declared playfully. "In the meantime, let's play something more luck-based. Here, it's called Uno. We've released an online version recently and the salarians found it fascinating, even more than Solitaire.".
...
This short wait to make sure no would discover what we'd been up to and to test if the kid would comply with our promise. And it kept it, either due to its patience or because we had built trust by keeping our own promises so far, such as giving a custom-made body.
One week before the first month of awakening was up, we let the kid run outside with the twins. This was its first contact with the world at large and, as one might expect, it was overwhelmed by the sheer scale of everything new, moving by an unrelenting spirit of curiosity. You could guess some of the things that happened: running everywhere, climbing trees, watching ants and insects go about their business, looking at clouds, feeding fishes, digging the soil and so on. Afterwards, the three runts decided to start playing, mostly tag and hide-and-seek.
In getting contact with nature and other living beings (birds, fishes and so on), the kid also started to get interested in how life came to be/reproduces. Then, it looked for the closest sources of information it had, the Ryder twins. Scott and Sara were too young to know more than the "the birds and the bees", so they repeated two different accounts of how their parents met. The boy said his own version of how Ellen had been swept up by Alec's "bad boy in uniform act", while the girl said that Ellen had found the act "cheesy" and repeatedly tried to flirt with an oblivious Alec, resulting in her getting nowhere until she asked him out directly. However, it was after consulting with the adults that the kid started learning basic biology/chemistry, which eventually tied in to an event that actually happened to me…
"So, we were going to this large salarian colony to recruit a salarian who was both a good scientist and charismatic leader. She was trying to restore the animal biodiversity there, by the way, and we'd offer to help with that too, in time.", I was narrating to the kid. "Besides, we were also running out of fuel and they had this thriving spaceport there.".
"What happened there to make you frown?", the child inquired, noticing my expression.
"You see, there was this quarian duo there. They were in a bad place. I mean, real bad.", I told with a sigh. "By preservering, I managed to get the full story from them. Apparently, some salarian bastards had decided to 'prank' the female by compromising her suit, which resulted in her lungs getting infected by yelik algae, almost killing her.".
"What did you do, Uncle Samael?", the child questioned. "You helped right? That's what we're supposed to do, mom and dad would say.".
"Well, that little 'prank' made them, at best, distrustful of other races, if not downright full of hatred. So, I gave them a choice: they could keep that feeling and I'd just walk away, the story ending there, or… they could believe for just one moment that there was also hope in the galaxy and that I'd find a solution.", I said, hiding how much anger I'd felt at that moment, but slowly showing a smile. "Eventually, they gave me a chance. Still, at the rate they were going, it'd have taken months to find a fix, but Mordin's the best. He solved it in a few hours, through the comm buoys. Even asked me to bring a few samples of the algae back. And those two joined us.".
"The quarians are the people who can't leave their suits, right?", the kid asked more to get confirmation, to which I nodded, one of the gestures it had picked up as an indirect way of communication. "Their code is not optimal.".
"No, it really isn't.", I agreed. "But we'll patch their 'code' one day. I don't know how to do it and may be just an armchair advisor, but we have people who can; who are smart enough to accomplish wonders together. After all, they made you.".
Third month after awakening
Outside of the house, in a forest.
"Did you know? Uncle is visiting today.", Sara commented.
"Really!? When?", the child blurted out.
"By nightfall, I think.", responded Scott.
"It's getting late. Let's go back!", it then proposed all of a sudden.
When they'd returned home, I had just arrived. Our reunion, like always, began with some very hearty hugs. And the kid decided to sit in my lap while I was telling my new stories.
"You guys might not believe it, but we managed to snatch a whole planet for ourselves.", I declared proudly. "Although it's a dextro one, with a population of turians a little bit bigger than 35.000, it's something of a base nonetheless. And there's also a few colonized moons around a gas giant.".
"How?", the child inquired. "Come on, tell us the story!".
"Let me see where to start.", I stopped to gather my thoughts, starting the narration. "Well, it all began when we got a job to deal with some pirates who'd cripple freighters leaving a thriving, but small, iridium mining community to steal. They'd accomplish that by lurking behind two moonlets…".
Those bastards hid from most basic sensors by using those massive objects. So, we quietly did something unprecedented. By using some newly developed gravitational-wave detectors, we found their locations, numbers and general size; then, disguising one of our ships as a volus merchant vessel, we baited them into boarding it. Something I had picked up when talking to Samara during ME2 was that Justicars were feared to the point of a pirate raid being called off after confirmation of their presence on a ship. Except, this time around, proving that fear right was the whole point.
While Samara was having her fill of the main pirate ship, the now disorganized rabble met another small fleet coming out of FTL in a carefully prepared pattern, partially based on those scan readings, while keeping the other ships busy and sending a few throwaway probes/drones on their path to prevent escape. We then disabled/hacked their sensors, spacewalked on the hulls, cut life support, "rappelled in" and finished off the survivors. The close distance, and the icing on the cake that was their free use of networks for inane chatter, made sure Keiji and our new quarian friends could easily make all of that a reality.
This was how we basically took over a small pirate fleet, something we'd need to keep doing, at least during this initial phase of our operations.
"But what does this have to do with gaining a planet?", the kid pointed out. "Uncle, you've said there's less than 4 thousand people in that mining colony. And they're not turians.".
"Oh, I was just getting to this part…", I answered with a smile. "You see, that was in the Hades Nexus cluster, but we later found out those pirates belonged to a pirate navy of some Terminus Warlord named Rashtek Chass…".
Instead of calling it quits there, we cooked up a daring plan to put his reign to an end. Now, this piece of work had a base on one of Nutus moons, Etrat, and a sizable navy, though it had been somewhat reduced by us. He liked to oppress the other colonized moons of the gas giant which his base orbited and one the places he most terrorized, extracting "tribute" from, was a turian farming colony on the planet Triginta Petra. Personally, I thought those guys were Nut[u]s for trying to farm in a world that was mostly desert. Basically, the Tatooine of this cluster.
Anyway, to make a long story short, we first datamined the ships for their recordings and comm chatter of the pirates. With that in hand, and a liberal use of software to mimic their voices/speech patterns, we tricked the warlord into believing we'd taken a volus merchant vessel only to find something valuable, showing a prothean disk (just a trinket Liara made). Driven by greed, the guy didn't even question when said ship moved to land on Etrat, rushing to follow us. He didn't know the valuable cargo was actually Samara, Kasumi and I. While this happened, our not-pirate ships stayed in orbit, very close to the actual pirates; close enough for their flimsy systems to be quietly hacked by Shadow Broker level cyberwarfare suite. Like they usually do, because, as I'd personally confirmed by now, the people of this Universe liked to do naval battles in space and their laser point defense only worked effectively at a few Km ("knife fight" range).
As the bait ship touched down, Kasumi left from a hatch and sneaked inside their base, looking to disable their defenses and, perhaps, turn those against them. But that warlord proved to be a coward, just as he would when the Reapers showed up, so he sent one of his lieutenants to greet us, which we reciprocated with hypersonic rounds and biotic skills after buying enough time. As for the rest of the fleet we'd managed to put together before? It was visiting all the colonies in the Star System, dispersing the equipment we had looted, and some new gear, to all those who'd take up arms against their oppressors. Thus, in a carefully timed attack, the blinded pirate ships had been caught off guard in the same vein as those first ones, with a few asari commandos leading boarding parties together with the colonists to capture them, while Samara and I went ham on the now defenseless base. When orbital supremacy was achieved, it was basically game over…
"...with the pirates crippled, and the very well armed colonists' reinforcements on our side, we steamrolled what was left of the army of that 'warlord' and pretty much cleaned up all the criminals in the System. Then, I came up with an agreement with the leaders of those colonies: we'd make that System our PMC's first base of operations, effectively turning ourselves into their military. In exchange for protecting them, securing trade and training a unified militia, we'd get a fixed amount of resources, which could just be credits, and get to recruit manpower from there.", I finished my narration. "And that's more or less how we got an entire colony as our base! Plus, another good thing is that there's an Alliance presence in that cluster. Maybe we should come to a mutual defense pact with them…".
"Uncle Samael, when you say 'defeated', you mean 'termination', right?", the child asked, almost fearfully.
"Yeah, that's right kid.", I admitted, remembering that the kid had recently come to know about mortality after watching nature. "They were bad people that hurt and/or took the lives of many innocents. It was for the best to get rid of those evil guys permanently. My only comfort is that we did it and that I didn't lose anyone from my group, at least.".
There was a pause of a few seconds. Then, the kid asked me: "Can we fix those innocents that were termi-, that died?".
"No. Not with our current means. Death is a truth in life. As things stand right now, every living being comes with an 'expiration date' and, sometimes, even that gets shorter if you factor incurable illnesses.", I said sorrowfully. "Take your mom, for instance. Due to repeated exposure to eezo, she developed a rare terminal neuro-degenerative disorder. Mordin has been working on a cure for a while now, but we've got nothing concrete yet.".
There was dead silence for a few seconds.
"The galaxy outside is not a very safe place, kid, especially to a being like you.", I said, in a forlorn tone. "That's why we need to be careful and why you need to trust us. But I promise it won't be like that forever. We are going to make things right.".
After being hit with many "truths" about mortality so close to home, the kid stayed quiet for the rest of the day, only hugging and/or staying together with Ellen.
Fourth month after awakening
The kid looked like a 10 year old now, though still androgynous, and we had given it more access to outside information, so its databases were updated with a lot more things to tap into. And it could tap into them very efficiently, more so when one considers that it was the third "increase" in computing power so far. What was interesting was that most of its new searches were related to biology, focusing mostly on cell reproduction, neuroscience and telomeres. After exhausting all the exploration "side quests" outside, our schedule returned to a homey family time. The difference was that we had many more questions to answer about the state of the galaxy in general, which meant I became the center of attention with my monthly stories.
"...So the bad guy was all like 'Zaeed, you can't order us! You are not the leader of the Blue Suns anymore!', then he retorted 'Just in case you didn't figure it out already, this is a hostile takeover!' and beat him up until he gave in.", I was narrating a recent event. "Zaaed has been secretly working with us for many months already and I have to say, he has some talent for one-liners. It's a shame, though, that he's too fixed on the 'I was the only one who made it out alive' line. It kinda gets repetitive after a while.".
"You can beat someone up until they do what you want?", the child asked amusedly.
"Only if they are bad guys.", I quipped back.
"Hey, Samael! You are being a bad influence to our kid. Get out!", shouted Alec from the other room.
"Let them be, dear. You know it's really not true.", admonished Ellen.
Alec grumbled, but made no more comments.
"Incredible! Hard to deny signs of sentience.", exclaimed Mordin, who had come to visit the family with me to check how things were progressing.
"What are you talking about, Dr. Solus?", inquired Ellen.
"It's like this…", Alec took the job of explaining, while showing a whole bunch of lines of code. "See these and how much they interact constantly with each other? This constitutes, more or less, the 'mind' of our kid right about now.".
"You know my area of expertise is cybernetic implants and neuroscience, not exactly those complex digital systems of yours.", she interrupted him.
"It doesn't matter if you can't understand it. You know we've been trying to make sense of all the new 'digital-neural pathways' being formed and keep up with the self-modifications, right?", Alec asked rhetorically, as the holographic image switched to a more recognizable form. "What's important to know is that we finally managed to 'map' all of those into a more understandable representation of the mind. Look, this is the result!".
"That-, I know we've based the AI kernel on the human brain architecture, but those neural pathways… they look too similar to a human's!", Ellen exclaimed just like the Professor did, then pointed to a specific part. "And those right there look like synapses, yet different; they appear more… efficient.".
"Correct. Most interesting part right here…", interjected Mordin, pointing out some specific digital-neural pathways of the mind. "Pathways commonly associated with human emotion of happiness activated when Samael comes and tells stories about his adventures.".
"This… doesn't that prove that they are no different from us?", asked Alec.
"You could say so, but I've never needed proof for that.", Ellen said firmly.
Fifth month after awakening
"Hahaha, Mordin finally did it! We have jetpacks now!", I shouted in happiness. "He must have gotten spooked when I almost fell down from that pirate ship in the last operation.".
"You almost died uncle Samael?!", the now 12 year old looking kid asked me with a scared tone while grabbing my shirt.
"Kid, aren't you focusing on the wrong thing here?", I shot back a question. "Think about it: jetpacks! Flying in the air free as a bird…".
A few days ago, I almost fell to my death because the pirates were too scared to let me board them, so they started burning delta-v like a blind drunk as their ship was leaving the planet. The joke was on them; not only did I not really fall down, but the panic and all the shaking just made my job easier. As for those "jetpacks"? Thane managed to grab schematics for the hanar contragrav tech (the one that allows them to basically float indefinitely) and, well, getting our hands on "jump jets" was never really an issue, since we had one of the best thiefs in the galaxy. Still, even if we couldn't get the proprietary turian ones, there was still the possibility of miniaturizing shuttle thrusters, since they're a very mature technology, all things considered, and wouldn't need to be big to make a humanoid sized object fly.
Heat was still an issue, though, so we couldn't just fly everywhere (for now), but there were some old human documments detailing the idea of dusty plasma radiators and my own explanation helped the team push forward the development of them.
On another note, some pirate/slaver groups of the Terminus started getting annoyed, if not outright spooked, with/by our streak of successful "operations". Or maybe they just thought that our pie was too big for the low number of members we had for now. So, a few of the smaller factions started to scheme together to get rid of the newcomers. As a result of that, my reputation as "The Devil" of Mindoir started to spread. And I began to wonder how long we could go on without pissing Aria off.
What came off as a big boost was that Zaeed finally managed to win the "civil war", getting a hold of the majority of the Blue Suns. Instead of the canonical twenty, Vido Santiago only had five years of actual leadership, so he hadn't managed to make it an almost batarian pirate/slaver haven; plus, after killing him some months back and capturing Solem Dal'serah recently, the old veneran merc had been systematically cleaning house – at least to a state closer to when the mercenary group was founded. On another note, he still made Zorya his HQ.
Thus, our operations were happening on two fronts. Both of our groups would be taking over different territories and contracts on the Terminus Systems, while recruiting new members from freed slaves, oppresed colonists, etc. Any people who weren't Hell's Angels material, which focused more on psych profile since we'd make talent irrelevant with actual science, would be "poached" by the Blue Suns. All of it would be done in a way that didn't look like we had an alliance, maybe merely a "mutual understanding". Like this, we could effectively "eat" a good chunk of the region without raising suspicions of a unified Terminus. For that goal, we would even make sure to evade Cerberus-controlled places and planets, such as Sanctum, more so considering that those would eventually join us in the future.
As for the kid? It finally had the experience of flying in the air with an eezo powered jetpack!
Sixth month after awakening
"... Then I did a backflip, snapped the bad guy's neck and saved the day.", I boasted with no shame whatsoever.
"No way. That last part must be a joke!", declared the now 13 years old looking brat, arms crossed. Before I could explain, we got interrupted by our resident former N7.
"We must have a talk. Kid, you're old enough to learn about a few things.", Alec said with a serious face (so, mostly his normal, every day face).
I could tell that things were serious, because everyone else was gathered here, minus the twins. Since we'd reached the halfway point of the growing up phase, it was time to reveal the truth of the Cycles of Extinction. We started laying down the summarized history of the galaxy, starting from the era when the Leviathans enthralled all the other species, how some of those races would create "synthetics", which would then "rebel" and kill them. In here, I made a point that it could've happened either because they were treated as slaves, instead of real living beings, or those conflicts occured because they wanted to "free" their creators from the mind-control of the Leviathans, but would have to go against the majority of the species, since their leadership must've been enthralled.
Then, we got to the horrible part of the story: the Reapers' origin. We took turns explaining that, in their infinite wisdom, the Leviathans decided to create an "artificial intelligence" of their own to solve the problem of creator/created (or synthetic/organic) conflicts while also preserving life in the galaxy. With such a stupid move, it wasn't a big surprise that they got done in, followed the creation of the equaly stupid "Cycles". We explained in detail how the Mass Relay Network, the Citadel and almost every leftover piece/cache of tech was a trap laid out by the Reapers so that every other civilization would follow their desired paths of development. Finally, we talked a little about the Protheans that came before us and how our cycle's end was due for a while now, but didn't come yet because of the sabotage done to the keepers' signal.
"They have probably planted the seeds of doubt and fear about 'synthetics' in all cycles. And the Protheans only made it worse. They had a lot of hostility towards such kinds of life-forms, mostly because of the 'Metacon War', something which must have been passed to the asari.", I explained the reasoning behind our secrecy. "Those must be the reasons we've always had laws making beings such as you illegal to even exist.".
"And this is one of the reasons we have to keep you a secret.", Ellen complemented. "At least, for the time being.".
"Please, don't abandon me!", the child cried out fearfully, body language clearly signaling distress, and was quick to make a promise. "I swear I won't be bad!".
This gave us pause. One thing those "in the know" say about superintelligence is that it'd probably also imply supercharisma, meaning manipulation would be a more likely tool to be used to get what it wants than outright force, but it'd be deceit nonetheless. Honestly, I didn't care. That was real emotion; it was done almost instinctively while showing true feelings. So, even before the couple could, I gave a big hug and put the kid on my lap.
"Don't worry about it, kid.", I shooted the child, which slowly calmed down. "We… well, I don't think like that. On the contrary, I find this premise – that the created (synthetics) will always 'rebel' against the creators (organics), which The Intelligence takes as an axiom for its stupidity – to be, frankly, full of shit; scientifically speaking, of course.".
"Hahaha, that's so you…", the young DS gave me a smile. "But why would they do that? The Reapers, I mean.".
"Personally, I feel that The Catalyst is very afraid of synthetic beings emerging that don't fit into its preconceived notions, so it poisons the well beforehand. After all, institutions don't work towards making themselves unnecessary. And there's a problem with the meaning of the words themselves. What does it mean to 'rebel'? Slaves rebel against their masters. Oppressed citizens rebel against their tyrant governments.", I told the teen. "However, in a society or community that embraces the rights of all sentient life, no matter their form, and that promotes understanding between different peoples, what or whom is a digital life-form going to rebel against? Their loving parents, brothers, sisters, friends and fellow sentients? Just because their existence is that of a particular substrate? What if, some day, energy based life-forms or silicon based life-forms are found? Is the digital being going to 'rebel' against them too?".
"That… doesn't make sense. It's stupid.", the teenager declared. "I would never hurt mom, dad, my siblings… or you, uncle Samael! But why would other DS want to do it?".
"I trust you, kid. And the only way I could see something like that happening in that society was if the digital being ended up trapped by some very faulty logic.", I gave my opinion on the situation. "For example, by beginning to consider organics as unnecessary since they are slow/flawed, then jumping from that 'logic' to 'they must, therefore, be exterminated!'. That's just nonsense. We don't declare war on an innumerable assortment of things, such as rocks, just because they fit into some arbitrary definition of 'unnecessary'.".
"I don't understand. Isn't the goal of all life to evolve until perfection?", the teen shot back a question, but showing no malice, merely innocent curiosity. "Wouldn't you want to remove imperfections?".
"Ah, here's the problem: there's no such thing as 'perfection'. I bet that, if we took all the synthetics ever created in the history of ever and asked them to define 'perfection', none of them would agree on it. Some organics would even be certain they already are.", I quipped to lighten the mood. "And I detest just how much that concept, evolution, is twisted by… basically everyone. Evolution just means adaptation to the environment. That's it. There's no 'pinnacle of evolution' because it's contingent on a determined situation. For instance, an evolutionary trait that was selected to increase survival in one place could easily mean certain death in another. Even generalists have to make some trade-offs.".
"Correct. Life always changing. Always adapting; improving according to need.", Mordin interjected, adding his own knowledge of the subject. "No such thing as peak, only change. Those that don't... leave the evolutionary race.".
"Plus, if being flawed or not-so-perfect as a digital being is such a terrible thing, then the solution can simply be to improve organics, rather than violence. Why does no one seem to ever think of that?", I asked more of a rhetorical question. "I mean, you were built from the ground up by sapient hands to be the best, with a good portion of that being the result of your substrate, while we were the result of billions of years of trial and error, guided only by nature's laws, yet nothing is stopping us from using that same sapience to improve our DNA, our own code, to be as close to you as possible, making up for whatever difference remained with technology.".
"You mean… the created working together with their parents, like I do with mom?", the kid asked and Ellen smiled, sharing Alec's confidence in letting me handle this part of the talk and revelations.
"Something like that, yes. It's an exchange. While the parents can teach understanding by tapping into millennia of civilization, their children can help them go further than nature had intended. With time, we can even reach a point where there's no distinguishable difference between them.", I exposed my viewpoint. "Besides, think about it: if you are a supporter of eliminating organics because they are not 'perfect', but find some other DS that is even more 'perfect' than you, are you just going to shut yourself down? After all, there's always someone better than you out there. For now, at least, there's the Reapers.".
"No, I wouldn't. That would be illogical.", it replied. "In fact, it would be hypocritical.".
"There are other examples of 'faulty logic', but, as the name implies, all of them have some kind of issue. Oh, a different kind of logical error was discussed in a very amazing story that I once read. That particular faulty logic can be summed up by the phrase 'there is only enough for one'.", I said with a big grin, happy that I managed to dig out that particular masterpiece from the old internet. "You see, in that particular malevolent universe, three precursor races were fighting over who would take all the resources of the galaxy and they'd scream some version of that phrase at each other. Still, they were only as smart as the Leviathans, so they created machines to do the dirty work in their stead. Guess what happened? Those machines gained sentience and thought to themselves 'If there's only enough for one, then why can't I be that one?', rebelling against their masters and almost wiping two of them out. Ah, when you think about it, it's always the precursors that fuck everything up for everyone else.".
"What happened to those machines?", the kid asked curiously.
"When they met the sheer insane wrath of that verse's version of humanity and attacked, they were either turned into scrap metal, fled to another galaxy, figured out that fighting was much more costly resource-wise than peace or learned that 'actually, there is enough for everyone, if you share'.", I gave some spoilers. "However, we don't need to worry about it. In a Universe like ours, where something that breaks entropy like eezo exists, there's no issue of resource shortage… probably. Besides, we should always look towards traveling not only between galaxies, but also between Universes. That would also solve any and all remaining resource problems.".
"Uncle Samael, I want to hear that story!", the brat implored, while everyone else breathed a sigh of relief, confirming that it was back to its usual self. "Please, pretty please?".
"Okay. I'll tell you as best as I can.", I said while messing with my Omni-tool. Logically, the extranet was now fully open to the child. "Just give me a moment.".
"Oh, here it is…", I exclaimed after finding the first chapter, while the rest of them team went back to their own matters. "Well, it all began when P'Thok ate an Ice Cream Cone and, because of it, completely changed the fate of his species…".
Seventh month after awakening
"...She, who went by the name of 'A Feral Drew a Dick on My Housing', in realizing the hopelessness of the situation, uttered wise words beyond any computation that the Young Ones could ever calculate: 'Welp, that's enough for me. I'm out. Fuck this!'. With that said, she sneered at the Young Ones, fired up her Hellcores and shouted out her warcry of 'So long, fuck-o's!' before leaving them to their foolishness.", I finished this day's narration.
"Hahaha, that name is just too funny. Who chooses a name like that?", the teen asked.
"I know, right? What do you think about those PWMs?", I threw a random question.
"Powerful, much more than the Reapers, but equally flawed.", it answered with no delay or doubt. "Evil and horrible, but also pitiful.".
"Well, they were created as war machines to eradicate the other sides of the war. That was their only purpose in existence.", I commented. "You know, it's funny when you consider those things, because I once heard someone make the argument that 'organics do not know why they exist, while machines know we created them and why', so, in their view, 'organics' would have no reason to exist. What do you think?".
"I don't like it. And I don't think that argument has any merit.", the growing teenager shifted uncomfortably. "Do you, uncle Samael?".
"Nah. To me, that's just a lot of BS. We actually have a good idea how we came about and it has to do with a lot of complicated physics, chemical reactions and a lot of time. It's just that some people aren't satisfied with that, so they turn to stuff like religion.", I offered my views on the topic. "However, the best thing ever is freedom; terrible, terrible freedom. Not having a 'purpose' is a benefit, not a detriment. That means we can do whatever we want in life. Besides, by knowing 'why you were created' (i.e. having a purpose), there's a chance you might end up as a 'paperclip maximizer', or as something like the Catalyst. It was created to 'ensure the continued existence of life in the galaxy through any means necessary' and 'oversee relations between organic and synthetic life, finding a solution to end conflicts', so it chose the most expedient and stupid way of doing it, by creating the 'Cycles' and using the Reapers to do the dirty work. What's the point of 'having a reason to exist' if it's a stupid reason? This is one big problem with hardcoding a purpose like that – in addition to the slavery part, of course.".
There was a pause of a few seconds, something that might as well have been an eternity for a being that can switch its subjective time to lightspeed at will.
"Is that why I was created without a purpose or directive?", asked the adolescent.
"That is one of the reasons, yes, but it's not the only one.", I confirmed. "The bigger reason is that all sentient life has the right to self-determination. Hardcoding a purpose or directive on you, no matter how innocuous, would be going against that. We gave you some 'instincts', though, just as we have received from billions of years of evolution. But you're not a slave to them, as is also true for us, and can rewrite them at will.".
"Then why was I created? To fight the Reapers?", the kid asked, deducing part of it.
"The answer is not as simple as it seems. One could say that your creation was inevitable, but the circumstances would probably have been much different. That's because pretty much any sufficiently advanced civilization starts manipulating and/or creating life at some point, and you are one of the types theorized. The reasons for such are many: for more in-depth knowledge about consciousness or 'soul'; for automation; for undying soldiers and armies; and, in the case of humanity, it could even just be for having new friends or simply because we could!", I contextualized the topic and gave a small smile at the end. "We, for what is undoubtedly a good and just cause, wanted your help to defeat the Reapers once and for all. But know that this is up to you. It's your choice, just as it would be for Scott and Sara. Even if you decide to go away in the future, we only hope that you'll help us in the creation of the new generation of DSs – which, of course, will get the same choice.".
"Uncle Samael…", the kid began, but I interrupted: "Shh, you don't need to decide yet. You aren't even old yet to consider those serious things, not to me. Let's just go back to having fun and learning, alright?".
"Alright!", was the energetic response.
Eight month after awakening
After my return this time, I noticed that something monumental had happened. During the monthly change of the android body (to 14 years old now), the kid had chosen alterations which indicated gender. She, for she had decided she was a she after these many months of contemplation, now didn't look much different from a human girl, clothing and all.
That, however, was not the only monumental event that happened. Mordin finally managed to get our first prototype traversable Einstein-Rosen Bridge working…
"What do you think about taking a step forward and going from one place to another in almost an instant?", I asked the not-so-young-anymore DS.
"You mean…", she asked me in return.
"Wormholes!", I exclaimed dramatically. "That glorious madlad, Mordin, finally did it!".
"Isn't that just science fiction? The only way to go from one place to another very fast is by changing the speed of light with eezo.", she claimed in a very confident tone and with her hands on her hips. "That's what I was taught and what is on the extranet.".
"Ah, until now, that used to be the case. Watch this!", I pulled up my Omni-tool, a new model with none of that stupid transparent overlay, and began showing a test recording of Mordin. "In fact, I can even claim a share of some of it, 'cause I gave him the idea of using quantum entanglement to 'prop open' the bridges, as a sort of 'long-distance connection between quantum entities', then you add in eezo to expand and keep it open…".
...
The recording began with Mordin going from one place to another rapidly, while messing with tech that I didn't really comprehend. The Professor was ecstatic by the prospects of creating a new type of FTL, even if he hadn't made much progress with the other type: the Alcubierre Drive.
With all things ready, he started the machine, which resembled a circular portal, almost like the ones from Stargate. However, the resemblance was minute, more or less. At the same time as it was activated, the gravity waves given off by the prototype were immediately canceled with directional waves that destructively interfered with each other, ensuring that no sign of this technology would ever leave the room. The visuals of the wormhole were… hard to describe, but very cool to look at.
The first test was just to try out the concept. He only tried to create a passage from something like 100 meters of distance. When the test object entered the first "portal" and immediately exited the next one, we knew things were looking good. Then, Mordin started sending a lot of different stuff through: cloned organic tissue, electronics, explosives, VIs, a chronometer to measure any time dilation (there was nothing noticeable there), a tightbeam laser used by comm buoys and even one adult Pyjak. Everything went smoothly. Afterwards, he redid all of the tests, but with distances of one light-second and one light-minute. Everything also went well here.
Lastly, he tried something of a proof of concept: by having the two "portals" mimic linked drones, transmitting information about a moving target on the other side and feeding the info into a very, very scaled down starship gun, he tried to hit the mark. The result was that 7 out 10 shots hit the target through the wormhole, from a distance of one light-minute, pretty much instantly. And that was just with a scrambled together, VI guided firing system, without any sort of "calibrations".
Sigh… where was Garrus when you needed him?
...
"Do you understand what this means?", I asked rhetorically. "After perfecting the means to hide gravitational waves, we can build an entire interlinked Wormhole Network completely separate and hidden from the Mass Relays Network, so the Reapers can't even touch our industrial and logistical bases, because they don't even know where they are in this vast galaxy. The Terminus Systems are an excellent choice for that. The Turians have mapped the place very well, but only from afar and those 'maps' won't take into consideration any new changes, so the Reapers also won't be able to know about them. And this is without even taking into consideration the ramifications for warfare, from weapons based on this to just maneuvering…".
"Uncle Samael, you are rambling again!", she interrupted me, exclaiming.
"Anyway, this is a game-changer!", I concluded, calming down. "And proof that our plans even for a direct confrontation with the Reapers are feasible.".
Ninth month after awakening
Not much had happened in Ryder Island since the last time I'd dropped by. In Mordin's lab, however, we got our first prototype "magnetohydrodynamic" weapon. Its core was a liquid alloy of iron, uranium and tungsten suspended in an eezo powered electromagnetic field. The molten metal, which was accelerated to a significant fraction of "c", solidifies into a projectile as it is fired, hitting targets with enough force to pierce most "modern" shields and/or armor. The gun can fire reliably every five seconds and can be scaled up or down. It wasn't even a problem installing them on fighters or bigger drones.
We had already prepared to quietly get the patent for any Thanix-derived weaponry and selling would be done through the already established Per Aspera Ad Astra company, but the production was a bit of an issue, even though we managed to grab a few space docks for ourselves and build some of our own by hollowing out asteroids…
"That's based on the Reaper's main weapon, right?", the 15 year old looking girl inquired.
"Yup. With it, we can make Frigates hit as hard as Cruisers and Cruisers might as well be Dreadnoughts, but it's still just a fancy shaped penetrator at the end of the day; inferior to our true weaponry. But, since it's going to be invented anyway, we might as well do it now, while also getting a big advantage on the Terminus.", I explained some of the details. "Still, this has the potential to severely disrupt the status quo, so the Council will jump on our asses if we don't handle it delicately.".
"But you need the credits and, at the same, for the galaxy to upgrade its weaponry.", she pointed out, posing with her right hand on the chin and legs fully crossed. "How are you planning to do both of those?".
"Oh, I have a general idea and it involves the quarians.", I gave her a small smirk. "We'll get in contact with the Admiralty Board and Conclave, getting into an agreement for them to provide the manpower in exchange for buying the cannons at production cost. They are very likely to agree, since it'll improve their chances of 'taking back' their homeworld. Also, in order to not hamper production, we'll add a clause of 'no giving cause and/or waging war against the Geth for the next 15 years'.".
"Because you are going to recruit the Geth to your side before those 15 years are up and broker peace between them not much later, correct?", she inquired with an amused tone.
"Yeah, you figured it out.", I confirmed.
"Ha! I am super smart nowadays and remember that it was you who taught me scheming, uncle Samael.", she threw my smirk back at me.
"I've taught you well, my young padawan. That's right, this is one of my future goals. As for other things we can do with the quarians' help, let's see…", I admitted, then began telling some of my schemes, ending it with a Signature Villain Laugh.
"Uncle Sasamel, you're so evil in a good way…", she sighed.
Tenth month after awakening
The kid was not a kid anymore. She looked like a 16 years old now. Surprisingly, her work with Ellen bore fruit in the form of the next-gen of biotic implants, the L4 series.
This was something that would only be developed in 2183 CE, shortly after Shepard's very intimate contact with a planet. It already possible because, besides all the wealth of information stored in Athame's Beacon, one of the key differences compared to the L3s was the use of VI interfaces to enable external monitoring and enhance the user's abilities, a hint I took by knowing about the Ascension Project. So, given all that, who better to develop those VIs than a digital being? That's how we managed it. As such, it wouldn't be long before we had those fully developed and ready to sell to the Alliance. As for myself? Well, we had to face a real challenge for once.
Apparently, some dipshit batarian slaver we had killed was related to a "respected" noble high-caste from the Batarian Hegemony and the guy managed to get a Cruiser-led fleet to move against us. Granted, it was just part of the "Batarian External Forces", but it was still stronger than the scraps of metal we'd faced off and/or acquired so far. We weren't all that prepared for the retaliation, but they were definitely not prepared to face Thanix equipped wolf packs of Frigates.
Yup, over this last month, we spent a lot of time refitting our ships on those space docks, with generous help from my new quarian friends, of course. Thanix cannons weren't cheap, but neither were they expensive. In ME2, as I remembered, the upgrade was the same cost as an Advanced Mining Scanner, for all that info was worth. Plus, there was no fear of a leak to the Migrant Fleet, because our quarians were already informed about some of our plans (the future agreement and such), so this was more of a test run.
And what a test it was! It wasn't a lie to say that the Batarian Hegemony was a paper tiger of an empire, one that fought its enemies mostly through deniable assets (pirates, slavers and terrorists). Sure, they were still a military power backed by an entire species and it'd have been a tough fight without those cannons, but I could see us crushing the Hegemony in the future. The way they fought was even more akin to naval warfare in space, no doubt the result of a thoroughly corrupt caste-based system, which often selected incompetent officers in place of more capable "lowborn".
Therefore, it was complete pandemonium when their "inferior" enemy fleet hit them from the front, up and sides with weapons they'd never seen before, using drones to coordinate the encirclement, while the only warship that their flagship (Cruiser) could hit would use its high maneuverability to drunk-walk out of the incoming projectile's path. Yeah, it was a big beatdown and one which we'd eventually bring to these "pirates'" masters too. Even if I didn't care about the slaves suffering at the batarians' hands, I wasn't going to leave their population to become Reaper cannon fodder to be used against us.
And, unfortunately, we had to engage, instead of just rabbiting to FTL, because they were aiming to hit one of our protected colonies. Still, that was where Arch-Demon Murphy drew the line, giving me a break, since not all of the enemy warships had been destroyed. And, among them, was that Cruiser, which had its bridge section melted ('cause they fail at even basic naval warfare, where the CIC is protected deep within the ship). Lucily, the antimatter containment hadn't been breached. As such, we got a few new ships for ourselves and they brought along another surprise for me…
"Guess what? We got in contact with a Batarian resistance group, or 'counter-hegemonist subversives', as the Hegemony would call them.", I brought up when talking with the kid.
"Really? How did you manage it? Isn't the Hegemony very isolationist?", she asked.
"Well, it all started when we were dealing with the crews of those mission-killed warships.", I paused a bit to summarize. "One of those was broadcasting a surrender message and, when we looked inside of it, we found out that one of the batarians had mutinied against the high-caste ones, killing them and taking over the ship with the rest of the surviving crew. He then revealed himself to be a member of one the biggest 'insurgent groups' in their society and offered to work together with us. After that, I left the negotiations to Thane.".
"Do you trust the guy?", she immediately questioned. "Maybe he was just trying to save himself.".
"Of course not. We checked his background.", I quickly replied, shaking my head. "He was once a DIC. I mean, a member of the Department of Information Control (DIC), although one should be considered a dick by being part of the Hegemony's brainwashing machine. He got fed up with all the bullshit, lies and cruelty, wanting things to get better; wishing for change. That's what he told us at least.".
"Still, it's better to be careful.", she nodded.
"We know. It's just the first step. That guy will get us in contact with more rebel cells in the future.", I stated, while smiling a sly smile. "With their help, a well-timed and well-equipped (by us) rebellion, some sleeper malware in their defense systems and a proper army/fleet at our disposal, we'll make short work of the Hegemony in the future. They'll never see it coming, even with four eyes!".
Eleventh month after awakening
"Guess what? I met a Spectre personally for the first time.", I boasted with a fake smug look.
"Aren't they those galactic super-agents or superheroes that are always on some mission to save the galaxy?", asked the almost adult by now.
"As if! That's just propaganda, the PR that the Council has sold for many centuries.", I had to scowl at that, especially after accessing the Shadow Broker files on the stuff Spectres actually did, many of them very questionable. "Remember our talk about the batarians? Do you think that dangerous people with almost unlimited power (to act with impunity, beyond even secret police) and a vague mission statement (galactic stability), that were created by a polity that lets something like the Hegemony exist, could be anything truly good?".
"True. It's doubtful at best.", she concurred, nodding.
"Just consider that the first Spectre, the guy that gave the Council the idea about the Program, was a salarian that used 30 people as bait to assassinate his target while neither confirming that their safety would be guaranteed nor caring about it.", I scoffed, thinking back to what I saw in the Archives section of the Citadel DLC. "And this one that I met, who was also Salarian, funnily enough, was sent to 'investigate' me and the sources of our weapons. If you didn't figure it out yet, he was there to steal our technology, not for any 'saving the galaxy mission'.".
"But they are powerful, right? How did you deal with him?", she inquired excitedly.
"Oh, I don't really know if he was a truly dangerous opponent.", I admitted, before thinking of a quip. "Can't say he was particularly smart or lucky, though.".
"How come?", she asked, curiosity oozing from her body language.
"Well, let's start from the fact that he thought he was just dealing with some lucky mercs that chanced upon nice guns. So, he had no idea that I had the Network on my side, with his 'mission' forewarned (after all, the identity and movement of Spectres is very valuable information).", I mocked the guy, then showed an expression of disgust. "Then, the bastard also used civilians as bait, but didn't do his homework. If he had, he'd have found out that most of the people of that colony were former slaves we had freed and, therefore, firmly on our side. Moreover, the krogan mercs he hired to deal with my companions still weren't up to par to deal with gravity accelerated guns. But what was really pitiful for the guy was the place he chose to entrap me…".
...
I was in a wide open area of a refinery, one that made me remember the one from Zaeed's loyalty mission a bit, except the workers had been evacuated after "baiting" me here. There was also a bunch of angry looking krogan, vorcha and two very well equipped salarians in the high ground, all overlooking me. Some mercs were down on the ground, to cut off any escape routes. My pistol was in my right hand, aiming at the leader looking guy, and I had my Mattock's hand guard loosely held by using my left one. Then, finally breaking the silence, the salarian in the middle started talking.
"Don't bother resisting. You are trapped here, with no chance for escape. We'll capture you and figure out the sources of those nice, little weapons of yours. If you cooperate nicely, maybe I'll not auction you off to the batarians most hurt by your operations. That's the price for 'rocking the boat' too much, as you humans like to say, something the Council does not appreciate at all.", monologued the salarian Spectre, whom I later learn was called Lonar Maerun, in order to intimidate me into surrendering.
"Oh yeah, I am trapped. But you know what? Speaking of traps, this trap's got a great, big mistake in it. A great, big, whopping mistake!", I slowly enunciated every word to them as Thane quietly worked his magic in the background.
"What mistake, Commander?", asked the Spectre, his last word clearly mocking me, while completely oblivious to the very explodey gasses filling his and the goons' general vicinity. Their helmets' filtration system kept them safe from the planet's dangerous environment, but it'd also herald their doom.
"A big, big mistake. Really huge. Didn't anyone ever tell you? There's one thing you never put in a trap. If you're smart, if you value your continued existence, if you have any plans about seeing tomorrow, there's one thing you never, ever put in a trap…", I monologued back, buying time for Thane's art to take form.
"Oh! And what would that be, Commander?", sarcastically asked his aide, also a salarian, this one named Urjon Taltz.
I looked deep into his eyes and muttered one only word, "Me.", before shooting my pistol at a leaking gas pipe.
Before their brains could even comprehend what was happening, everything in the upper levels just blew up to kingdom come, roaring flames engulfing all in sight, especially those two very squishy salarians, their expensive high-tech suits of armor not meant to protect against explosions and extreme heat.
Without further thought, I holstered my pistol and grabbed the rifle, taking down everything that was still alive after that glorious boom. And the reinforcements that had been hiding outside, even some courageous people from the colony, also started cleaning up the rest of the mercs, mostly krogan who'd survived the blast. It was not every day that the residents of the Terminus could give the metaphorical middle finger to a Council's agent. And those krogan really were tough SOBs.
At that moment, I also began thinking about recruiting some of them to my group.
...
"...have to agree that the Spectre's ship was quite nice. However, we couldn't leave it there in the colony, as that would cause problems for the colonists. Fixing the refinery will cost a penny as well. Worth it, though!", I finished my narration.
"That was awesome! That 'me' part was so cool.", the late adolescent exclaimed, then the tone became worried. "But can't that cause more trouble for you, uncle Samael?".
"Nah. Thane later ran interference for me, putting the blame on the Blood Pack. Something about them taking revenge for the genophage or such. It's not like they differentiate krogan mercs, or even care to begin with.", I dismissed her worries. "Besides, we were in the Terminus Systems, doing good, and their act of aggression went beyond any legal attempt to solve whatever problem the Council might've had with us. That was probably just a greedy move by the salarian Councilor to get his hands on our tech. I swear, salarians are considered the most scientifically minded race in the galaxy, but I've got the feeling that most of their 'innovations' are actually stolen stuff from the other species.".
I had underestimated the amount of piracy in the galaxy. Only when you move away from the portrayal in the games and realize that the "official" news sources belong to the Council Races does it start to make sense. Even the Alliance prefers to downplay the pirate/slaving raids, because it wasn't "helpful" to their "colonization efforts" (a.k.a. mad rush/grab for territory before the batarians did). Small raids in which a few dozen people disappeared were seen as not important enough to care. Only larger attacks, in which the count of victims reached the hundreds or thousands, got screen time, like Mindoir would've had.
And all of it could be attributed to one thing: the Council really hated anyone that rocked the boat. That was one of the reasons for their antagonism towards the Alliance. Humans had a way of being a spanner in the works. We want things to change, for shit to get done, for things to get better. The "Big Three"? They wanted the status quo. A perfectly perpetual state of stagnation where they always reigned supreme. They abhorred any change that they themselves were not in total control of.
The quarians were a technologically capable species that almost reached post-scarcity with their robotic servants and pretty much had the Terminus Systems as their backyard to expand. They could have posed a threat to the status quo if things kept going. Then, what did the Council do after their fall? Used flimsy legal excuses and took advantage of that people's vulnerable situation all in order to make sure that they vanished from the galaxy: an infinitely long exile to space, under threat of orbital bombardment if they so much as build a city on a planet (Ekuna). What they wanted was very clear: for the quarians to go extinct in their aging vessels. But they survived, they held on for three centuries, a fact outside the control of the "Big Three" which pissed them off immensely.
The krogan were a useful controllable tool, until they realized that the Council only survived because of them and, therefore, they could be the ones in charge instead. So, after winning the "Rebellions" (after all, krogan were mere servants), the Council decided to prevent any attempt to truly "uplift" the krogan into the galactic community (education, rebuilding, fixing of societal issues and so on). Oh no, what they did was put up the DMZ, so that the murder turtles can't rebuild their Civilization and be anything but violent brutes and mercs to the galaxy at large, fated to die a slow death and never again threaten their reign. Or… perhaps so that anyone else saw what "rebelling" against the masters of the galaxy gets you?
When humanity made the Council have a "hold up a minute" moment 'cause they actually managed to somewhat defend against turian aggression (and the absurd justification for it was leaked to their vassals), they tried to use the batarians to keep the humans in control. Their "gift" of the Skyllian Verge to the Alliance was a poisoned meal. The Council correctly expected that neither the humans nor the batarians would back down in their expansion and, with how incompatible both were (after all, slavery was something abhorent to us), a conflict was inevitable. That was an "open scheme". It's a shame that few in the Alliance caught on. The "Big Three" must've hoped that Alliance and Hegemony would fight a mostly quiet war, bleeding each other dry, while they would wait for the right moment to step in and show everyone who were the masters of the galaxy.
So, by doing what we were doing in the Terminus, we were messing up their plans. Getting rid of or taking over all the "unofficial" assets of the Batarian Hegemony, systematically eliminating the pirate groups, securing the region and so on. All those things would give humanity an easier time to develop their colonies without getting bogged down by fighting off the batarians. How the Council would react to this was very easy to predict. They'd send more Spectres, or just STG teams, to "investigate" us into oblivion. The last moron I met was but the first and he was only sent to steal tech.
Too bad for the Council, though, no one gave them the memo that we wouldn't play by the "rules". I'd soon kickstart a shitstorm that would ripple across the entire region, shrouding our true operations even from the most observant eyes, while simultaneously putting us in an untouchable position, at least as far as open retaliation was concerned.
She was old enough to know, so I told her those musings of mine. After all, there was only one month left until she had to make her choice.
One year since awakening
It had been a year and our "child" was now a full adult. We were gathered outside of the house, minus Liara, who was still obsessing over Vendetta, and Thane, who was running the Network.
"You already know pretty much all we have to teach you and everything important that there is to know about the galaxy at large, especially its dark parts.", I spoke succinctly, as it was all that was needed at this point. "It's time to make your choice, kid.".
"We'll support you in whatever choice you make.", promised Ellen.
"And we are all proud of you.", Alec broke his stern expression.
Mordin, being who he was, just smiled.
"Guys…", she tried to speak, but paused. If she had tear ducts, I bet she would be crying right about now. "In truth, I've already made my decision long ago. The Reapers represent death, destruction, stagnation… evil. They are the enemy of all life in the galaxy. And they also claim that organic life represents chaos. Well… I was created by organics, by chaos. I am also the first of my kind, the ancestor of all future Digital Sentiences. Gaia, that is both my name and my promise to shelter all life against those soulless, broken machines!", she, no, Gaia told us loudly.
"Looks like you've made your mind.", I commented, smiling.
"I'll prove that my code-, no, that our code is superior!", Gaia proclaimed.
With that done, we started loading all of our stuff onto a shuttle. Gaia's bluebox, android body and computing units were loaded too, of course. Alec would join me in the Terminus operations with a fitting title/codename, while the Alliance would only know that he took his wife to seek better medical care elsewhere, telling his friends in the human polity that the treatment had shown good results so far. Also, he had already taught me a lot about N7 training. That, plus Thane's own training regimen and all of Mordin's gene mods, made me one tough SOB after more than a year.
As we were leaving Earth, Gaia went to the window, put her hands in the glass and looked over at the distancing planet.
"That's your birthplace, the Pale Blue Dot. You know… I proposed we use it during your growing up phase partially for this… moment.", I revealed with a kind smile. "It's different than just seeing it on pictures from the extranet, right?".
"Yes. It's… beautiful.", she replied.
"Let's work hard to keep it that way, then.", I proposed.
A few Mass Relay jumps later, we finally managed to get to the base. The Broker's ship had been renovated a lot over this year. Immediately after arriving, a green glowing orb of spasming lines of code, in the form of a Prothean, appeared in front of us.
"Presence of artificial intelligence detected. Initialization of extermination protocols highly recommended.", said Vendetta.
"Good day to you too, Vendetta.", I greeted him amusedly. "Don't bully Gaia. She's the newest addition to team 'F the Reapers' and she is not someone you can mess with.".
"Acknowledged. Creating new exception ruleset for entity 'Gaia'.", he replied.
"Chummy guy, huh?", she commented sarcastically.
"Well, he's getting better. You should've seen the guy the first time we brought him here. He was so fucking annoying, bothering us all the time with questions like 'Why aren't you building the Crucible? It's not possible to fight the Reapers conventionally. You should warn your goverments about the Cycles, blablabla'. In fact, I considered adding a mute button to him.", I admitted with a grin.
"Well, he doesn't look that annoying anymore.", Gaia noted.
"That's only after months of tech development results and analysis. The creation of the wormhole, the gravity based weaponry and Thanix weaponry, just to name a few, really messed up his worldview.", I explained, sighing. "And our plans on how to use all that tech finally shut him up for good. Now, he has taken the role of Liara's assistant. Sometimes, I even forget he's just a VI and feel like he looks almost eager to beat the Reapers with a more 'conventional' approach.".
We then continued our tour, with me talking about the changes. Some new faces showed up, like Keiji, who was our hacking expert and the one responsible for disabling a lot of the ships we took over. Even if they were trustworthy, the people that the core team recruited, such as Maelon (for the genophage cure 2.0), still had to stay in another hidden base and only knew general info about the Reapers.
After meeting Mordin, we learned that he had improved his wormhole stealth tech and that, in the future, those "gates" would probably be able to be deployed in seconds. For now, we could only open them by constructing "portals" on both points to be linked (so no "return to sender"), but the Professor gave hints that we might be able to generate wormholes without that limitation someday. Also, the research on the Alcubierre Drive had made some progress, with the long distance travel prospects looking good.
Gaia also surprised us. She revealed one of her plans to speed up the next-gen of Digital Sentiences: the creation of a digital/hash creche. It'd be something like a virtual world, with everything necessary to make it equal to reality and a very dilated time. Since we took a lot of time and care with Gaia's upbringing, we wouldn't need to do so again, because she could use her own experiences to streamline the growth process.
Afterwards, we discussed our military, industrial and logistical hidden bases. Our priority was designing a proper "tech-tree" that was modular, interchangeable, self-repairing and self-replicating, from the most basic nanomachines to the most complex constructs, all the while being able to be controlled by either a DS or a neural-interfaced "organic" (kinda like a technopath). It had to break away from the mind bondage the galaxy was in and actually utilize eezo closer to its potential. Thus, our focus would first be developing our own nanites, then turning them into those Fabrication Engines I'd talked about. With that done, we could truly kickstart automation and speed everything else up.
It was a good thing that our foundation was solid, especially nanotech. For instance, Sirta Foundation created biological nanides (omni-gel) based on the tech of the Mars Archives. This was thanks to the existence of Prothean nanotechnology that, while recorded, was entirely unused outside of medicine. It was incredible just how much Prothean tech was, well, almost underdeveloped, to be honest. Merely using nanotech this way was the least of their lack of imagination; not using eezo to further accelerate their particle beams was a big blunder, for example. I mean, just the mechanism behind the Prothean Beacon that I saw during Eden Prime allows for so much more than just a Space Skype call!
Still, now that we had amassed technologies and military "power", it was the time to make some new allies, especially now that the Council was showing some interest in us…
[Scandroid - Awakening With You]
#%&*$ %&§ Music Reviews
We concur. It is not optimal for a machine to remain in solitude.
[Warning! Error 404! User unidentified! Banned for illegal action. Suspected use of VI program.].
[Science Time!]
Taking over those first pirate ships: how did we accomplish such a smooth operation?
Here's the thing, in the Mass Effect Universe, they've got this inconsequential little thing that goes by the name of Element Zero and the gist of it is that it can take spacetime (you know, the very "fabric" of the Universe), squeeze it hard and do a breakdance with it. As a result, it must generate these things called "gravitational waves", in the same vein as the collision of two black holes does (and in a massive scale). However, no one in the MEverse had ever thought of using gravity to detect anything, such as enemy warships.
Oh, you might try to be the devil's advocate and say: maybe the writers couldn't have possibly known about it back then? Sure, gravitational waves had been directly observed by "us" only in 2015; except they had been proposed in 1893, predicted by general theory of relativity (though Einstein refused to accept them) and the first indirect evidence of their existence was in 1993. All of this was way before ME1. Therefore, me being the "law-abiding" guy that I am, and way back during the "revelation" aboard the Shadow Broker's ship, threw this idea to the core team. So, we've got gravitational-wave scanners now!
It doesn't matter if the enemies are just hanging lazily in space; every second their artificial gravity system is activated to mimic 1G of gravity, it's like a Christmas Tree in spacetime, telling us there's something equal to a planetary pull concentrated in one small area… This is probably how the Collectors managed to find the SSV Normandy during ME2, since the ship moves while in stealth by creating "contractions" in spacetime and still leaves its artifical gravity enabled during it. Either that or with something nebulous such as "dark energy scanners". Why did the Reapers not have the same scanners as their servants? I don't know, but would ask back: why didn't they take the Citadel immediately at the start of ME3? So the plot could happen, I guess...
:D
Author's Notes: This chapter has shown one of the pivotal elements of this story, this being the reason I took so much time on it. With Gaia now as a "core" member, we can do so much more. The truth of the matter is that, even if "AI" are not beings that would think like us, they will still learn from us and, ultimately, emulate us, weather that's good or bad. I don't see "AI", even superintelligent ones, as all "doom and gloom", and believe the "canon lore" supports this position too.
Let's take a look at a few the examples of "AI" shown the Original Trilogy: 1) the Geth, which only "rebelled" after being on the receiving end of unrelenting aggression, albeit they did it in a very extreme way; 2) the Luna VI, which was confused after being haphazardly made sentient by Cerberus and given a lot of weaponry immediately (I don't remember anything on the games stating that the Hannibal VI killed marines, though many writers make it so in their fanfics, but I could be wrong); 3) EDI, which is the result of that crazed VI + Reaper code, ending up as the most moral member of the crew (she could've killed everyone and taken over the Normandy during ME2, but chose not to); 4) the Citadel thief one, which only wanted to make enough money to escape Citadel space, turning hostile against Shepard only because it had been found out and thought that was the end of it (due to the Council's laws); 5) SAM, who is very chill and always helps the organics; and 6) the Zha'til, who only turned on their creators because of the Reapers.
Those aren't all of them, but, as you can see, they're either friendly, had never shown inherent opposition to organics or had been used by the Reapers for evil. Not even the Heretic Geth (less than 5% of all Geth) attack organics out of hated or "rebellion", but because their god said so and to get what they want (a Reaper body to upload into). A few other hostile examples appear in the MEverse more as the result of messed up coding or circumstances. In fact, the only "AIs" who has ever shown outright hate and disgust towards organics are the Reapers, Sovereign being the worse offender, which just makes the RGB endings even dumber when you think about it.
This is a topic I've often thought about lately, since we are increasingly using "machine learning" and "neural networks" in our lives, to the point that sentient "AI" might truly become a reality. And it worries me for a different reason. When people talk about "artificial intelligence" (especially the superintelligence kind) nowadays, it's either how it will be our last creation (as our downfall or that any future advancements will just be made by superintelligences) or how we'll be able to "control it", citing any number of miraculous, creative or outlandish solutions to basically "shackle" it as not-a-killbot. I look at these, however, and wonder why does no one consider the moral side of things? They all talk about how AI can't be "controlled" or how this and that would keep it "under control", but almost no one seems to stop to question if creating sentient life only to imprison it, especially to serve you, is morally wrong... Thus, I set out to lay the groundwork for something different.
If one considers the claims of StarBrat as anything but BS (one that contradicts much of what we've been shown during the trilogy, especially when taking into account the possible Quarian+Geth resolution), then there's no need for this or any other story at all, as we could simply do jack shit for pretty much all of it, just reveal the Crucible+Catalyst to Shepard during the ME2 period and press the Destroy button a little bit after the Reapers reached the galaxy. Done. Evidently, I'm not going that.
As for the Spectre bit, this came as the result of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, in which he told me something to the effect of "there ain't no way the Council wouldn't try to steal those weapons after hearing about their effectiveness". An entire "duel" against the guy wouldn't really fit into this chapter, so I made a reenactment of a scene I'd found very cool from a certain old british show. To me, Spectres are hit or miss. While some are very capable fighters, we have guys like Jondum Bau, who can get done in by a random human grunt bodyguard during ME3 (in the hanar diplomat quest). The one I used here was mentioned in Cerberus Daily News and his partner died to corporate bodyguards while also almost getting killed too, as far as I recall.
...
Questions for my readers:
1) What did you guys think about this [Science Time] section? I'm thinking about going back and doing something like this for Chapter 3, Part 2 + 3.
2) Are Jack/Jennifer's parents alive or not? Should I write some scenes of her with mama Samara?
3) Do you guys want to see more of MC's personal life, even knowing that I'd have to stop and write some of it from scratch, or do you prefer that this First Act focuses on getting shit done, as in the bigger picture, like I've been doing so far?
4) What do you think about recruiting Drack? And how would you go about it if you were in the MC's shoes?