Metal Rain: Chapter 17 - Reservation Of Power

Gryp-Saddah admired the young diplomat sitting opposite him, for giving him an opportunity to save face, not that he needed it of course. If Saddah so wanted he could throw this little pipsqueak out of his office and start a planetary war all before the next half orbit.

However, despite all Trem's faults he did like the young man. He was barely above one hundred orbits old and was a terrible Mesh player however Saddah did enjoy talking with him.

Faddok’s conversational skills rivalled that of many of the General’s older friends and associates.

The General was mostly impressed with the way Faddok could layer so many meanings into relatively few words. He decided that he would answer the diplomat’s question, and would even do so within a day.

“When we plant a talook plant or a ghabside tree do we interfere after just a few orbits and try and dig up the soil? No we do not, we simply plant the seeds and then we wait and see what will happen. This is because we know that you cannot rush nature along, it will either work or not.

I am much older than you Trem-Faddok and let me tell you this is not the first time we have witnessed such a thing.

Luckily for our species we worked out a long time ago how to deal with such events. However each time we experience another one we let nature take its course.

These machines are the living embodiment of the beings that made them, which makes it inevitable, or at least as far as we can tell it does, that these things will eventually meet and go to war.

What I find fascinating is the patterns that these events follow after a species launches self-replicating AI probes. Of course with so many of us cluttering up the galaxy it is inevitable that at least one other, more likely several other species, launch their own probes within a few hundred orbits of each other.

Eventually these probes run into their alien counterparts, usually in interstellar space and at that point how they treat each other depends on the nature of the species that invented them in the first place. One thing is for sure though, it is somewhat inevitable that some probes end up going to war, destroying each other and creating a semi-autonomous, pseudo-AI cloud.

Then another even more advanced race, usually us, if it’s happening in our neck of the woods, comes along and creates a controlled singularity or two and whoosh it’s all gone.

However what is interesting is seeing how the different levels of species deal with the crises, even the level one to two societies who have literally no chance of dealing with the problem. Even they with their limited ability and their fledgling AI tech, can provide quite entertaining sport.

Especially once the machines have landed on their planets, though like I said, it is entertaining watching them come up with sometimes very novel solutions.

Then there are the stage three to four level societies, like our friends down on Raiffe who call it the metal rain. They for me are the most fascinating because they have so many more options available to them than the early-stage species.

For instance Raiffe could have sent recovery ships to go and get every single one of their drones back, it would have only taken them a little more than 100 of their orbits, maybe 150. However long it took they would be assured that their probes would not add to the problem.

But no, they decided to send this sentience code out to deal with the problem. Which for me is like releasing a group of stinging zaeleks to deal with your inzic infestation, sure the inzics will probably all die, but then what do you do about the rabid bloodthirsty zaeleks?

This is incredibly fascinating to me simply because in all my time in viewing this problem, nobody ever thinks to recall their probes. They always think for some reason that their probes will be OK, instead of realising that everything eventually becomes part of the metal rain, even stars if you let it go on long enough.

Which of course we won’t.

This I view as a kind of galactic evolution that we can learn from. Perhaps this is the way things are meant to be, a kind of universal natural selection on a system-wide scale.

The ones who survive go on to become advanced level societies, mature enough to take part in the galactic discourse among the elders."

In his answer the wizened old General had given no indication that he was even aware that Faddok was listening. He paused briefly in his soliloquy to exam the Mesh board.

Trem's last move had been a foolish one, it invited the General's forces to attack the most obvious weak point, Faddok's dominator piece.

Gryp-Saddah gave a small grunt as he took a small piece from the bottom most outer layer of the mesh, and placed it directly in front of his own dominator piece, thus consolidating his defensive forces.

He felt that he wouldn't be rushed neither in diplomacy nor in a game of Mesh. The General waited for the strands of the Mesh board to settle before he carried on.

"From what we can tell, the current automaton crisis is at the moment confined to around a 3,000 light orbit volume of space. At the rate of increase it would take around fifty million orbits for the machines to ‘eat’ the entire galaxy, hence I feel; and the other Generals agree with me, that we have a bit of time to wait and see.

So tell Habius that while I admire their concern for other species we haven’t even officially met yet, I will not sanction any frivolous helping actions at this time. I feel that we are justified in our actions seeing as far as our own planet and system are concerned, we are completely defended and safe.”

Trem-Faddok did not show how much the general’s answer had annoyed him, instead for the next few weeks he sat in silence taking in all the general had said.

Finally he leaned forward in his seat, the Mesh board glowed softly between them.

“Have you ever wondered if there’s a higher species watching us, looking to see how *we deal with the varying crises? Let us hope that when we are dealing with our own extinction event crisis, that they do not have a stubborn old General who could come and help resolve the situation and show us the error of our ways, yet refuses.”

Their conversation was clearly over but Gryp-Saddah knew that out of respect Faddok would still have to finish their game of Mesh. He decided that he would time the beating of the young upstart with the first day of the equinox, that ought to teach him something about the way he spoke to his elders and betters.

Gryp-Saddah wasn’t sure what it would teach him, but he knew it would be something.

Something valuable.

Of that he was sure.

Metal Rain: Chapter 16 - Intransigence Dilemma

Metal Rain: Chapter 15 - Diplomacy Mesh

Metal Rain: Chapter 14 - Scorched Earth

Metal Rain: Chapter 13 - Self Doubt

Metal Rain: Chapter 12 - Timeless Start

Metal Rain: Chapter 11 - Child Psychology

Metal Rain: Chapter 10 - Paradise Eaten

Metal Rain: Chapter 9 - Message From Home

Metal Rain: Chapter 8 - First Born

Metal Rain: Chapter 7 - First Contact

Metal Rain: Chapter 6 - The Impossibility Of Being

Metal Rain: Chapter 5 - Entropy Envy

Metal Rain: Chapter 4 - Vacuum Call

Metal Rain: Chapter 3 - Transformation Requiem

Metal Rain: Chapter 2 - Nanostorm

Cryptogee Chronicles Book Two: Metal Rain - Chapter 1 - Void Edge