The Mech Touch

5835 Unforeseen Circumstances

The 'AI core array' that governed the operation of many of the essential systems of the Dominion of Man was more horrifying that Ves imagined!

He was already aware that the fleeters tended to invest heavily in AI core research. The Common Fleet Alliance never made it a secret that they had been trying to chase after the holy grail of sentient artificial intelligences.

Due to this unreasonable obsession, the researchers who dedicated their lives and careers to this goal tended to get really… creative.

Many researchers had already tried and failed all of the usual solutions. When no sentient AIs becforthcoming, they started to explore less conventional solutions.

Ves easily figured out that he had cface to face with one of the demented outcomes of these failed experiments.

The brains did not contain any coherent intelligences as far as he and Blinky could perceive.

This was despite the fact that he was pretty sure these brains used to belong to real people who had all lived for over a century!

The fact that they were all derived from potentates with the highest aptitude for piloting mechs made the sight extra horrifying to a mech designer!

Where did these brains cfrom? What did the fleeters do to convert them into organic AI cores? How did their performance diverge from conventional computing cores?

Ves had so many questions in his mind that he did not know where to begin.

Captain Zonrad Reze meanwhile looked just as taken aback, but for different reasons.

Despite the fact that he was a fleeter, Sigrund exhibited a visibly worse reaction to this macabre sight. He had rapidly counted the amount of brains that the fleeters had stuck inside a vat and chained them together to form a unified computing array.

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While not all of the individual brain units were visible due to various structures blocking his sight, the captain of the Babylon Excavator estimated that the fleeters had stuffed over a thousand brain vats in this space!

"You have questions." Dread Captain Argile broke the silence.

"I do…"

"You may ask. I cannot provide you with all of the answers, but I shall do my best to offer sufficient clarification for you to be of service."

"Thank you, captain. These brains… are they taken from deceased mech pilots?"

"No. I can promise you that not a single of these extracted and preserved brains are taken from mech pilots."

Ves immediately let out a sigh in relief.

Volkert Argile smiled at Ves. "The providence of these brains are all sourced from deceased officers of the Common Fleet Alliance and lately the Red Fleet. The donors of these valuable organs were all descendants of the spaceborn clans. When they have reached the age of 10, we test their genetic aptitude as any other human in order to determine their genetic aptitudes."

"Ah. I see. Given that you fleeters have always despised or looked down on mechs, I take it that your mech academies aren't exactly popular."

"That is indeed the case." The fleeter nodded in confirmation. "To any other human, being told that you not only have the qualifications to pilot a mech, but possess stellar talent for this vocation is a dream ctrue. Every year, many newly identified potentates feel as if they have won the lottery and go on to throw themselves into mechs as if they are gods in the making. I find it pitiful that so many young and ignorant children feel the need to throw aside their humanity and turn themselves into inhuman gods, while completely overlooking the abysmally low success rate of advancing to the highest rank."

Ves tried his best not to comment on Dread Captain Argile's obvious inhuman appearance.

After all, not everyone chose to massively boost the capabilities of their cranial implant by installing an external add-on that covered a part of their skull with a metal device!

"So there are fleeters who resist the temptation of starting glorious careers as mech pilots and go on to enter naval academies?"

"Every self-respecting scion of a spaceborn clan will do their utmost to follow the proud traditions of their ancestors." The member of the Argile Spaceborn Clan said with pride. "Piloting mechs is taboo in our world. While we are not categorically opposed to employing mechs when they are useful, many of them are either piloted by our more… deviant members or by those who originate from friendly states, of which there are few. Regardless, there are many potentates within our ranks that have gone on to man the guns or take control of the helm of a naval vessel without ever taking advantage of their mech piloting talent."

What an incredible waste!

Ves was sure that any member of the mech community that discovered what the fleeters were doing with their own potentates would probably go mad with grief!

How many heroic mech pilots could the fleeters have fielded if they did not unreasonably stigmatize the mech piloting profession?!

How many more god pilots would human civilization command if all of those elite fleeters received full support in stepping onto the path of godhood?

Ves had encountered many instances where people and organizations clearly ignored the objectively best choices and decided to engage in stupid behavior because of the need to abide by their beliefs.

This was probably the worst case of principles leading people into engaging in monumentally stupid behavior that he had ever encountered in his life!

Not even the Vulcanites who tore apart the original Vulcan Empire due to an argument over whether their god was a human or a dwarf could top the fleeters in terms of sheer idiocy!

Ves really wanted to slam his head against the side of this sickening brain chamber until he had created a dent!

Instead of giving into his frustrations, he controlled his emotions and tried his best not to call the fleeters stupid for preventing the birth of many potential high-ranking mech pilots.

"I… understand the cultural factors that have led the descendants of the spaceborn clans to pursue naval careers. Why make use of their brains in this capacity after they have died?"

"Neural interface technology encompasses more than enabling a person to connect with a machine for the purpose of piloting the latter." Volkert Argile explained before waving his arm around the interior of the giant sphere. "The Brain Trust is a radical departure from prior AI core research, but its working principles are remarkably simple. The goal in developing this construct was to discover whether we can develop a powerful AI core array that can not only regulate the systems of a warship of the Common Fleet Alliance to a far better degree than anything else, but also promote the birth of a sentient gestalt personality that is formed out of a combination of all of the fleeter officers who utilized all of these brains in the past."

Ves widened his eyes. He quickly understood the overall logic behind this crazy experiment.

"I see! Utilizing the brains of former living human individuals might give you a better shot at creating a sentient AI than through other means. After all, they have already formed sentient consciousness in the past, only they were human instead of anything that primarily runs on math and logic. If this first step is a success, then you soon have to worry about whether the precious sentient AI is cooperative. This is anything but guaranteed as it is completely uncertain whether it will stick to its original programming. In order to increase the probability that the newly born artificial entity is favorably disposed towards the Common Fleet Alliance, you deliberately harvested the brains of upstanding officers who served with distinction when they were alive."

Sigrund also added his own piece. "Loyalty is one part of the equation. Competence and specialization is another part of it. All of the organic nerves that have been chained in this large array have spent decades if not centuries on performing many vital duties related to running first-class warships. They are literally hardwired to efficiently solving many problems related to the operations of our vessels. Even if their original owners have died, their neurons will still retain much of their original 'configurations'. This should theoretically allow these converted AI cores to excel at intelligently solving many problems that previously required manual intervention from an officer."

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"That is a highly insightful observation, Captain Reze. I expect nothing less from one of our rising experts in the field of AI research. As a specialist who has recently participated in the development of ARCHIE, what is your overall evaluation of our Brain Trust?"

"It is… a and unconventional approach towards solving one of our long-standing problems." Sigrund said. "Despite all of the favorable factors, the probability of success is not high. Human brains are not only geared towards spawning natural human sapience, but they have already completed their work after their owners have reached the end of their lifespans. Trying to salvage more use out of them by converting them into AI cores is an inventive idea, but I am afraid that all of the bioengineering that took place after their extraction has damaged the very factors that are capable of generating true sapience."

Dread Captain Argile nodded. "That has been our finding as well. Do you have anything to add, professor?"

"I am not sure whether these 'organic AI cores' are fully up to the task of running a ship as large and complex as the Dominion of Man." Ves voiced his doubts. "A-grade genetic aptitude or not, the brains are still human in essence. They are grown to support human logic and emotions. At most, they can process pure data a lot better due to their amazing genetic aptitude, but that is still a divergence from their original purpose. No matter how much you have modified them after you plucked them from the skulls of deceased fleeters, you will not be able to go too far with this. They are still human in the end."

"Our researchers originally disagreed with your theory, but recent events have caused us to… reconsider our assumptions."

The mood inside the Brain Trust grew heavier.

"What… happened?"

The captain of the Dominion of Man paused for a few seconds before revealing the truth.

"The organic AI cores may appear calm and docile at the moment, but that is not always the case. Ever since Red Cabal has plunged us into the Age of Dawn, many of our systems have experienced progressively stronger changes and mutations. Much to our relief, many of them have turned out to be neutral, negligible or benign. Our Spark Reactor has grown the most after the Great Severing has occurred. Our Brain Trust on the other hand has grown less reliable."

"What's the problem?"

"The organic AI cores… have a tendency to grow sentient."

"Wait, isn't that a good thing? The Dominion of Man will gain a powerful sentient AI that will be able to optimize her systems far better than one that can only simulate human thought patterns."

The powerful captain shook his head. "The reality is different from what you have imagined, professor. Constant exposure to E energy radiation is causing each individual organic AI core to… restore portions of the original personalities of their prior incarnations. That is not to say that our deceased officers are being raised from the dead. Instead, completely new personalities are coming to life that have inherited random traits of our eminent officers. This might not necessarily be a problem, but what is troubling us is that the 'sentient AIs' not only emerge randomly, but cannot work together in any fashion. When multiple of them begin to interact with each other as human-like personalities as opposed to pure processors, they quickly conflict with each other. The greater the quantity of spawned personalities, the more our Brain Trust begins to glitch."

That… sounded incredibly freaky to Ves!

"How cthis Brain Trust hasn't already transformed into a madhouse of the living dead?!"

"We regularly reset and mindwipe the corrupted organic AI cores. The Brain Trust is designed so that we can remove a small portion of them without affecting the overall performance of the AI core array, but this is only a stopgap measure. We cannot keep wiping these valuable organic AI cores. Not only will each reset inflict permanent damage to the neurons, but they are becoming better at spawning new rogue personalities. The Brain Trust is rapidly turning into a liability at this rate."

So that was why the fleeters needed help.

Their crazy experiment had screwed them over!