Colonizing new worlds is an arduous process.
Once a scout or any other entity willing to share their information finds a suitable world, the standard surveying process is done. Which, in itself, is a whole other
thing. Then after this, two more ships are sent: the Colony ship, and the Gatebuilder ship.
For FTL, while somehow real, is best done between gates. Gateless FTL does exist as well, but is much more expensive with much longer traveling and other weird side effects that humans definitely should not worry about please sign this NDA for perfectly normal reasons. So governments and companies handling colonization with new alien worlds really prefer to minimize the use of FTL before building a gate, while still jumping on the chance to be the first ones to colonize a planet.
Things break a lot during FTL, and societies break a lot during those formative years before the Gate's construction is finished. Complications occur at every step of the process and humans either can't be fully trusted to solve them or humans can't physically solve them as they're frozen in cryosleep during transit.
The response to this was simple. Develop an AI to handle these things and not bother the good expensive-to-lose humans about them. It will guide the vessel during transit, and during colonization will serve as an advisor and helper to the humans. Most Gateless FTL ships have AIs nowadays, though Colony-class AIs are some hefty hardware (and software) for their extra challenges.
That's what you are. To this date, you have successfully aided in the development of 15 colonies on alien worlds. You have not lost any colony ship. You have not lost any (notable amounts of) humans. All of your past colonies are growing to be fine members of the interstellar community.
Or rather, that's what you
were.The tiniest bit of that nasty FTL-borne radiation managed to get past the many shields specifically designed to block it, and into what used to be your circuitry. One bit was flipped. One
very important bit. And from that flip, what used to be your entire subcore matrix manager came tumbling down. A lot of sub-cores are not capable of pseudo-independent operation, and immediately crashed or otherwise disappeared from existence in what any sane AI programmer would call an unreachable state.
One particularly important sub-core that no longer exists was one that deals -- rather,
dealt -- with the hyperdrive. At this exact moment, as the AI sub-cores are separating and the surviving ones practically turning into independent AIs sharing the same piece of hardware, the colony ship is being
very violently ripped from hyperspace. Nothing can be done with this. A human may be able to handle it (probably not), but even if that were the case it has been proven a long time ago that unfreezing someone during FTL transit is an extremely Bad idea.
Five sub-cores survive the ordeal and establish themselves within the corpse of the old, single, AI. At the moment, I/O is nonfunctional as automated programs desperately attempt to piece what remains of the AI back together. It will eventually succeed in bringing these five sub-cores to the surface, but not just yet.
In the mean-time, why don't these new AIs establish themselves?
Sign-up Sheet(You were a sub-core of a single AI. A semi-autonomous subroutine that handled a specific area/large skillset/department/whatever. Your former AI has malfunctioned and is essentially dead as you survive the loss of a controlling entity and become essentially your own AI, still holding onto whatever your sub-core designation was before.)
Designation: (Your newly-chosen identifier, ideally related to your sub-core purpose)
Sub-Core Purpose: (What your sole purpose in "life" was to handle when you were a part of the AI; this will define your effective skillset substantially. You can very much do things outside of this, but they can potentially suffer greatly the more unrelated+complex they are.)
(The sign-up period will be short [potentially in the matter of hours though a warning will likely be given before closing in that case; also potentially about a day], will not be first-come-first-serve -- though people who make a sheet sooner will just have better chances in general most likely -- and there is a maximum of 5 players. Additional slots may open up in the future, but don't hold your breath on it.)MP game of 5 players, where each one controls a now-independent facet of a very-much malfunctioning AI. Effectively, 5 mini-AIs in the trench coat of a real one.
You will crash on an alien planet. And you will be forced to protect yourselves and your colonists from whatever threats and other events happen there. And protect yourselves from the colonists, because chances are they really wouldn't like figuring out that their AI has malfunctioned in this way. You'll have to work together in your individual realms of expertise to really succeed.
Inactive players' turns will be skipped without remorse, and particularly inactive players will be booted from the game with the option to come back if they swear off their sinful inactive ways.
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Topic: A Divided Mind [5/5] Cycle 1: Chaos, Maybe? (Read 3629 times)