Solipsism

Ten: Being Alone

The ship's AI – her artificial intelligence – is basically just a computer. Of course on a complicated ship like this, the computer itself is distributed across various and numerous locations. This is done for redundancy as much as anything. Newhope, the AI, is spread all around the ship and can't be said to live in any one particular place. The fact of the matter is she's everywhere. Thus another reason for her wide distribution: she's ubiquitous. Nothing that happens on the ship gets by her unless she allows it.

But calling her just a computer is a misnomer. She's a quantum mechanical hypercomputer – infinitely powerful, infinitely fast and capable of completing infinitely many steps simultaneously. In other words, as Jack might say, she's way smart. She's so smart that she seems for all intents and purposes to be alive. And in fact she may be. What's your definition of sentience? What's your definition of life? Be careful because all of a sudden you might find yourself bumping up against Newhope.

Jack tended to anthropomorphize her, just as he anthropomorphizes Spike. Who's to say he is wrong in either case? In my own experience with Newhope, I discovered she had a wicked sense of humor. She was clearly also self-aware. In addition to that you might say she was capable of computing non-computable functions – in other words, she possessed subjective reasoning. She was intuitive. She had instincts. She made intelligent decisions.

This goes beyond "Cogito, ergo sum" and perhaps verges on mysticism. Although I don't admit it often, there are things in the universe I do not know. One of them is whether or not Newhope is alive. Because I am unsure, I prefer to err on the side of inclusiveness.

I know I have a reputation for being a bit of a risk-taker on occasion, but when it comes to Newhope, I do not throw caution to the wind. Quite the opposite, I'm being about as circumspect as I can be. This is not for entirely selfless reasons.

One does not idly mess with a hypercomputer. You see, a "normal" computer, sometimes known on Earth as a Turing machine, can complete infinitely many instructions – but Newhope goes beyond simply being able to run for an unbounded number of steps forever. Maybe you caught what I said earlier? Were you paying attention? She can complete infinitely many steps simultaneously. A hypercomputer uses time dilation to spend an infinite amount of time performing a computation while a finite amount of time passes for an observer.

So while I'm uniquely qualified to work with hypercomputers, and if you've not figured it out already that's because I'm a Time Lord, I also know that a misstep could make for one hell of a problem. I gently manipulate time, and on occasion it may appear that I have fun with time, or even control time, but I never screw with it. Ditto screwing with a hypercomputer; think of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and multiply it a few gazillion times.

My sonic in hand and with my TARDIS in the background listening in, I tenderly, carefully, warily start to poke at Newhope. I'm moving from console to console, from terminal to terminal, trying different approaches; different bits of code, different protocols, different forms of communication, different types of interfaces. At first I'm not sure she's there at all, and I find myself wondering if the voice we'd heard, the mysterious warning, was some kind of remnant – a ghost – an aberration.

I keep trying. I have a lot of ideas and surely one of them is bound to work if Newhope is still viable. I'm not being immodest: I'm that good with computers. The large number of different workstation configurations on the bridge, with all their complex variety and diverse types of interfaces, is impressive and fascinating. You really can't blame me for being captivated; for becoming engrossed. It's like a high-tech version of an upscale chocolate shop. I'm carried away by the technology and it is exhilarating.

Then the display I'm working on suddenly goes dark. I frown at it. That's clearly a step in the wrong direction… But presently on the black screen a single, lonely blinking amber prompt appears. It's a right angle bracket, a greater-than symbol. As I watch as a series of letters slowly materializes next to it. Eventually I see six alpha characters followed by a question mark. I see:

Doctor?

I lean back and stare curiously. A second line appears below the first with the same content. And then a third, identical line emerges. While I'm considering what to do a fourth line renders and it is different than the preceding lines. After the right angle bracket four words are gradually revealed, one after another. The four words are separated by single spaces and the final word is followed by an exclamation point. This is what I see:

You are in danger!

As I watch, the words blink out once, reappear briefly, and then blink out again. I wait. It seems the monitor has gone dead.

And then I hear a noise behind me. Ah! I figure Jack has probably returned to bother me in person instead of on the com. I figure, too, that this is okay because I really wasn't enjoying being alone all that much.

I turn around. I'm right: I'm not alone. And I'm wrong: It's not Jack…