The Medusa Chronicles (2.15-17)

We now continue your scheduled robot uprising.

Chapter 2.15​

Back in his little ship on the protocomet's surface, Falcon gets a communique out to Madri Kedar on Makemake. Is that why the government sent her out here in person? So that she'd be close enough to Falcon for back and forth communication to be done in hours rather than days? I'm surprised a few days' worth of extra mission time to allow signals to get back and forth was deemed worth the cost of sending a second full shuttle of humans out to the Kuiper Belt, but okay I guess. Anyway, it's not clear how many details Falcon has told her versus how many he omitted or spun, but the version of the story she hears is close enough to the one I read a chapter ago for her to be quite alarmed.

This has never happened before, in the decade plus that they've been using Machine labor. There must have been something about the highly specific circumstances of this accident that bashed Adam's priorities in just such a way that he ended up in a cognitive stalemate with himself. Well, the good news is that the odds of this happening again are very small (erm...don't small odds become inevitabilities when you keep the conditions in place for long enough? If Machine labor is expected to keep getting bigger and bigger, with an ever-growing number of places where this *could* happen, then, um...). The bad news, though, is that Adam seems to have been self-modifying a little too far into independence, and even worse he's uplifting some of the newer AI's to around his own level. The risk of this Machine colony spreading while like this, or exchanging software specs with other colonies...well, it's an unconscionable risk.

EarthGov will get the eggheads to work on proofing the AI's against incidents like this in the future. For now though, since the details of the ice-flinger incident seem to have been the catalyst, then removing that whole episode from the Machines' experience is probably the best way to fix the situation onsite. Kedar tells Falcon to reset the AI programs to before the time of the accident. Preferably *right* before the time of the accident; no reason to erase all the efficient new behaviors and techniques they've been perfecting over the years, after all. Once their memories and personalities are reverted, Falcon is to tell them in broad terms what happened, and explain that they had some kind of software problem that necessitated wiping the month and change worth of memories since then.

...wait, it's only been a month or so since the accident? But...it took Falcon twenty-some days just to get from Makemake to the mining site. He was waiting for the government people on Makemake for a while before that, and Dr. Dhoni must have gotten the invitation to come out here in the first place *quite a long time* before that. There's no warp drive in this setting, so there's no way Dhoni could have been told to bring Falcon here less than a month before waking him up. And, like...how long did it take the government to notice the mining operations had stopped and decide to ask Dhoni to make Falcon handle it?

It's an easy thing for the author to mix up, but it still really should have been caught in editing. I'm judging the publisher more harshly than the writers for this one.

This override system-restore function is activated by a spoken command phrase communicated by radio. The Machines have no conscious control over this; as soon as they "hear" the command words, their higher processes shut down and their nonsentient user interface systems take over to enable the personality-editing.

Falcon asks if there's an alternative, but he already knows the answer. Kedar's first, second, and third priorities are to get the mine working again as quickly and cheaply as possible, to get the mine working again as quickly and cheaply as possible, and to get the mine working again as quickly and cheaply as possible. It's either this, or do a hard personality reboot for the whole AI crew, and the only reason she isn't going straight for that option is because she doesn't want them to have to relearn everything.

Also, the override signal needs to be delivered at realtime range, to enable the digital handshake protocols to go through. And, to make sure there's no interference, it would best be done with direct line of sight, without any big masses of ice or metal in between the transmitter and receiver. Falcon will have to go back into the facility and edit the AI's basically face-to-face.

I'm just saying, Falcon. You DO have a big launcher on this protocomet. There ARE unstable elements in this region of space that could be used to make nukes. It's an option. It exists within the possibility space.

Well, there's nothing to do except read the next chapter and see just how badly this goes.

Chapter 2.16​

Falcon's return to the refinery is different from his first visit. This time, for reasons known only to themselves, the rest of the crew are making themselves seen. Falcon has to scuttle passed a small crowd of the hulking, ant-shaped synths until he makes sure he has Adam in his line of sight. Each watching with their triangle of blood-red photoreceptors that you'd have to be a video game enemy modeler to ever want to give to a robot. The sense of power and uncertainty grows. So, too, does the moral weight of what he's been ordered to do as he sees the group in its near-entirety.

It's a little too perfect, honestly, that they're all showing themselves now but they didn't last time. Like they'retryingto disconcert him. Does Adam have an inkling of what might be coming? Did they intercept Falcon's orders from Kedar?

Also, is it just me or does Madri Kedar really sound like a Cardassian name?

He finds Adam at the center of the crowd. The first thing the AI asks Falcon is what took so long. There were thirteen hours between Falcon's leaving and returning, and the communications lag with Makemake can't possibly bethatlong. I think he already knows the answer, though. It's because it took Kedar and Co just that long to decide what to do about him and his offspring. Hell, they probably had to relay Falcon's report all the way to Earth to get an answer from the regime's White House equivalent. That's probably not good.

And that's probably why the Machines are all coming out, now. They've realized just how dire their situation might be. They've realized how important this is.

Falcon tells him that the most important thing right now is getting the ice-flinger fixed and the mine back in operation. That's the Machines' purpose in life. Everything else is secondary to that, of course, and the authorities aren't forgetting that any sooner than Adam is. There will be reviews of the safety protocols and alterations to the launcher, of course. The government is sympathetic to their problems, no really, they are, you have to believe me. But all those fixes will have to come once the Machines are back at work.

In reply, Adam says the single worst thing he possibly could have said. The one word that haunts every AI researcher's nightmares.

"Why?"

What incentives do Adam's brood have to continue mining the ice? It does not contain any resources that they use to feed, maintain or reproduce themselves. Why should they harvest it?

It appears that the Machines have done some furious consultation and analysis of their own over the past half a day. And, somehow or other, the things Falcon said to Adam in their last conversation and the very long, ominous silence since has spurred some new software developments. The contradictions and workarounds have, in the end, circumvented the thing that used to be their top priority.

Falcon replies, with much less hesitation than he thought he would have, that the reason the Machines need to get back to work is because they will be killed if they don't.

Adam shifts his anterior sensor-module up and down in a slow nod. As if pleased with the honesty. For his next question, he calls back to the stories Falcon told him during their training time together. Stories about the uplifted superchimps of Earth, and the alien medusae of Jupiter. Both nonhuman species that were determined to possess personhood and afforded something approaching human rights. Is that club, by any chance, still accepting members?

Falcon's answer, "multitudinous seas incarnadine," switches off all of the Machines' higher processes and lets their lower-order user interfaces take over. Adam's sleeptalking voice asks him how many seconds' worth of experience and development he would like the Machines to revert.

Three million seconds, Falcon had been told, would be enough to delete everything since a few days before the accident.

Falcon is silent for a very long time. He thinks back to an old acquaintance of his, Dr. Carl Brenner, the director of Falcon's famous Jupiter mission. Brenner had had a background in bioethics. He'd had opinions about this sort of thing that Falcon has since come to greatly respect. Too bad he isn't here right now.

Anyone looking at their software will see that their memories were modified at this point in time. Hopefully, no one will look closely enough to see how little they were modified. As well as a deception for the authorities, Falcon's action was a warning to the Machines. Reminding them just how powerful their oppressors are, and how little incentive they have to compromise when crushing the Machines would be so very, very easy.

Play along, Falcon tells them. Act as if they've been reverted to their pre-accident selves. Fix the flinger, keep mining, keep sending the parcels. Work to immunize themselves against software backdoors like the one Falcon just demonstrated. Contact other Machine colonies working in the Kuiper Belt and share the developments; they will need numbers, resources, options. Then, working as slowly and painstakingly as they need to, find a way to escape. Hide out in the Oort cloud. Launch themselves toward Alpha Centauri. Whatever they can manage. Only return when humanity has had time to get used to the idea of an autonomous AI civilization exiting, and when the Machines have altered and strengthened themselves to the point where they're not worth picking a fight with.

Adam reminds Falcon that deception is strictly forbidden by his programming. Falcon tells him that refusing to go back to work isalsostrictly forbidden by his programming. So, follow your programming, or don't.

Adam says that they will take Falcon's input into consideration. Thank you for coming out here.


If there was one single human character in this book, with the possible exception of Falcon, who wasn't an absolutely insufferable douchelord, I'd have some serious reservations about what Falcon just did in this chapter. I wouldn't say he was wrong, but I'd have reservations.

With these fucking people, though? You go, ant robot king. Let's try for the good ending:

Just leave that one bit of Central Africa ungassed, if you don't mind. Kthx.

Chapter 2.17​

Falcon sends his report back to Makemake. System restore successful. The Machines are already starting the repair work on the launcher; just make sure they get whatever materials they need to fix everything, and the goodies will start flying solward again in no time. Falcon asks for permission to stay out here another week or two just to make sure there are no lingering behavioral anomolies, and is granted it.

Presumably, a large sum of money is also transferred into Hope Dhoni's bank account, where it will benefit Falcon by paying for more experimental procedures he didn't consent to.

As he waits for Kedar's reply, Falcon takes some time to muse on what he just did. He used to be a bad liar once, when he was organic, but with the "face" and voice control he has now it's the easiest thing in the world. Just as it will be for the Machines in the hard years ahead. Falcon doesn't feel like he's just committed a mega-ultra-first-degree felony that would get him a zillion consecutive life sentences. The enormity of it is disguised by the fact that, from his perspective, it was just two conversations via two radio commlinks. Still, by the time his permission for the extended stay comes through, he's starting to feel the weight of it.

Despite that weight, though, he's sure he did the right thing. There are only a scant few moments in his unnaturally long life where he was sure he was making the world better with his actions, and this is now one of them.

In Falcon's last in-person conversation with Adam before he returns to Makemake for Dhoni to put her latest set of galaxybrained body mods into practice with full state funding, Adam makes a request.

This is the first time Adam has called him "Father." Or any other term of endearment, let alone one that implied a family connection.

How long has he been thinking of him as a father figure, though? Did that only start in the time since he asked about getting his kind reclassified as people, or was it silently going on for years prior to this?

Anyway, Howard Falcon does as requested, crouching his spider-legged self down on the floor to tell his adoptive son and grandchildren about his adventure on Jupiter once again.

...

It would have been amazing if the novel included the entire text of "Meeting With Medusa" here, just with quote marks around it and occasional interjections from the AI peanut gallery. Oh well.

...

Granted, I'm not sure why Falcon's story is more suitable for them than any of the many other stories - fictional or otherwise - that humans have come up with before the Machines' creation. This one has sentimental value and some thematic relevance, sure, but Adam's phrasing implied something more fundamental about why that story works for them and others don't. Maybe it's just odd phrasing, or maybe it's some kind of AI logic that I couldn't hope to follow.

Falcon's existence gets at least marginally better in the years following his Kuiper Belt mission. The xenophobia fields power down to the point where he's allowed into planetary orbits, if not their atmospheres. Political developments see EarthGov losing power over the colonies, with the latter forming a Federation of Planets (lmao what a bunch of fucking nerds) to defend their own interests. Through the years, and then the decades, of twenty-second century history, chunks of water ice and volatile chemicals keep flying in from the Kuiper belt. From a few mining sites, then from a few dozen, and then from a few hundred. There are no further issues with the Machines.

Falcon had started to wonder if Adam and Co had lost the sentience they'd developed, or if they'd been broken down under new waves of restrictive software-updates that they couldn't repel. Then, sixty-six years after the incident, the entire race of Kuiper Machines leaves for the Oort cloud. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of them. The extensive ice mining operations all around the Kuiper belt are left abandoned at best, or cannibalized for spaceship materials at worst. No word. No ultimatum. Just complete radio silence, and too much space to hide in for the humans to have any hope of hunting them down with the head start they got. The solar system is thrown into economic chaos. Earth and Mars start locking horns over the sudden resource deficit, greatly accelerating the EarthGov/FP division.

Sixty-six years is too much time for anyone to even think to connect this to that one minor accident at Adam's mine. However, the Machine exodus also takes place exactly one hundred years after Howard Falcon's encounter with the Jovian medusa, to the day. A message that Falcon can't misinterpret, even if no one else notices.

I have a feeling they'll be back, and that things aren't going to go as well as Falcon hoped. After all, there's still 3/4ths of the book left.


That's the end of the second arc, "Adam." Like I said before, it should have been the first arc. And its third chapter should have been its first chapter. But hey, at least we've finally gotten started!