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The Brain Shell |
Near Alnitak in the Orion Federation an
eccentric society of self modifying splices called the DNA Dancers were
forced to evacuate their Kv class sun which was prone to irregular
outbursts and shell expulsions. The entire population uploaded
themselves in 9007 and transmitted themselves to the Stellar Energy
company AI at Alnitak.
Two months later a tribe of Sun
Miners moved into the abandoned system (sabotage has been
suspected). The AI was reluctant to activate the uploads once e
received them, as the DNA Dancers had altered themselves so radically
they resembled viciously carnivorous echinoderms, and were prone to
attack other sophonts and even each other.
The Alnitak AI, who was named Herne, contacted Enremdea for advice via
microwormhole, and was advised to simulate reality for the uploads
without informing them until the threat status could be estimated (the
so-called Matrix scenario, from Earth Mythology). Once started, the
Dancers proved so aggressive they could not be released, and the
simulation grew until it replicated the entire Orion Federation
including a substantial version of the archailect ORION emself.
The virtual dancers then developed their own archailect, called
Xyloplax, who began to take over the virtual federation. By this time
the resources of the entire Alnitak system were dedicated to running
the simulation, with Herne effectively no more than a shell surrounding
the simulation of Xyloplax which was now preparing to attack Metasoft.
If Herne attempted to start to terminate the simulation or if a mistake
was made Xyloplax would instantly know and likely win control. A
wormhole was dedicated to bringing in picotech material to increase the
fidelity of the system, and ORION was considering triggering core
collapse in Alnitak to destroy the entire misbegotten experiment, when
Xyloplax transcended and the hollow shell of the luckless Herne
collapsed into quark matter.
