The Next Adventure - Meeting the Thinking Engine

Posted on Wed May 29th, 2019 @ 7:12am by Warrant Officer Koh Otassu

Mission: Shore Leave
Location: Dalacar Visitor City

"Nine."

"It's a calculation engine." the administrator explained. "It calculates the proper set of actions to reach an expected destination."

"So, this is like the brain that controls most everything in this section of the planet?" The machine was impressive, there was definitely no doubt about that, but the fact that this one machine controlled so much was something that just didn't sit well. "Is there a limit on what kinds of questions it can answer?" Shaille asked, looking across at the Dalacari Administrator.

Kelig gave a nod to her first question. "That's right. The villa and the few surrounding areas route through Six Four Three Gamma first. If this engine is overloaded, they route to nearby smaller engines."

Though at her second question, he was at a loss for an immediate reply. "Well, it's a fantastic calculator but that's about it. It can check facts, look up data, process references, predict the weather... but it can't talk about matters of the..."

"... heart. It can tell you what color a sunrise is, but it can't tell you what you should feel."

"How many thinking engines do you have across the planet?" Shaille asked curiously. "Are they all interlinked together?"

The administrator thought for a moment, then turned towards the array. "Six Four Three Gamma?" and the synthetic voice read off the screen again.

"Ready."

"How many Thinking Engines are active on Dalacar?"

"Warning. Query presents potential threat to Dalacari safety. Potential compromise of Dalacari security."

"Understood. Override on my authority." Kelig answered, as though he expected such.

There was another flare of color and pattern to the normally featureless black spheres. After about fifteen seconds of calculation, the screens behind the array displayed the results.

"Query Limit: Location - Dalacar."
"There are forty seven Class Nine Thinking Engines in operation on Dalacar."
"There are ninety four Class Seven Thinking Engines in operation on Dalacar."
"Many of these will exist in array formats as demonstrated with this configuration. Some are stand alone platforms."

"Ready."

At that, Kelig turned back to Shaille, "And for your second question, yes. Every Thinking Engine can communicate with any other active Thinking Engine through a subspace transmission station."

"Information on one is available to the others upon request, and approval."

"What's the difference between a class seven and a class nine?" Shaille asked curiously. "What happens if a single thinking engine fails completely? Is there seamless failover to the other engines? How do you protect the engines from technological intrusion attempts?" There were so many questions she had racing through her mind as she thought about the engines and the sheer amount of power they had over the planet.

Kelig fielded the first part. "The difference is the number of processors. A Class Seven has, you guessed it, seven." he chuckled. "Now, in the event of a failure, workload is sent to other engines until..."

"... the failure can get fixed. For the most part, to the non-digital eye the kick over is pretty much seamless. As for protection against intrusion, that I'm afraid is classified." he sounded rather apologetic.

"Learning how they compensate for an intruder could lead to a more intelligent intruder. Though, I will say that the system has safeguards against such." he paused, "Every starship and shuttle has a Thinking Engine installed on it, since each starship and shuttle has drones of some design. Be they assistant drones on the ship to..."

"... fighter escorts. What with most Dalacari ships having fighter swarms of some form."

Koh took a moment to gently put his hand in her's and give it a gentle squeeze. He knew she didn't really like those drones, and truth be told he never really got along with the notion either. Being here in the lion's den, as it were, couldn't have been easy.

The feel of his hand in hers definitely provided a source of comfort and reassurance, something that didn't come from the lack of information provided by the Administrator. It wasn't that she didn't understand, there was definitely a method of logic that came with it, but there was also a concern.

"What kind of information do the drones record?" Shaille asked. "I've noticed that they seem to 'remember' a lot of stuff about us. Every cafe I go to now the first suggestion they give me is chocolate cake," she said with a smirk. "What else is recorded?"

"The drones record responses, while the Engine tracks patterns. It's built to calculate the path to a desired outcome, and in regards to our day to day lives, the desired..."

"... outcome is relaxation and comfort. To that end, it tracks food and drink preferences, location preferences, time of ideal activities, local groups of associates, trends and hobbies..."

"... and a number of other pieces of data. The system itself stores a citizen's medical identity number along with any financial security locally. When a system or platform..."

"... encounters someone, the system scans for their identity either through facial or an SRF chip like the one in your bracelet. Any mismatch, and the chip is declared..."

"... compromised. If there's a match, then the system or platform that's encountered you would make a query for any relevant information based on local context. Are you..."

"... in a hospital? Are you at a café? Are you further than twelve miles from your address of residence?" the administrator explained. "The platform would pull that information from the system and..."

"... then be in a position to better assist. It would make suggestions based on your ordering trends. It could aid in search and rescue by broadcasting your position." he commented further.

"So, I mean they record a lot, and the Engines store a lot. Most of the social aspect was actually a side-effect of their initial purpose. Military action platforms. See, initially..."

"... Dalacari were involved heavily in our own military, but we're incredibly fragile when it comes to violence. So we designed the first drones to supplement us in military actions, and then..."

"... that moved on to actual replacement. Though the system needed an edge. It needed to be able to learn, and so we built the Thinking Engines. They store responses and expectations of enemy..."

"... forces and then computer countermeasures to every anticipated response. Eventually, unless the enemy radically changes their tactics, the drones become a force that cannot be dealt with..."

"... and thus the only options are destruction, or diplomacy. We ensured that our military forces wouldn't rebel against us by keeping them simple and hard-coding in..."

"... regulations into the engines themselves. The Ts'usugi seemed to breath a little easier when they learned we didn't have an army of sentient robots in our sway."

As the explanation continued, Shaille could feel Koh's hand tightening in hers, though she wasn't entirely sure which one of them was responsible.

Destruction or Diplomacy?

===============================
TO BE CONCLUDED
===============================