Balathunazar began to move toward the star and due to its titanic mass, the few nearby planets of this star system, essentially specks of dust, were drawn to it. The planets and moons slammed into its skin but the impacts were so negligible, it barely even noticed. There was one gas giant that slid smoothly to its surface and blended with its mass in a semi-pleasurable way. The Asdrale Cimatir opened its mouth and began the process of swallowing up Tabit whole, eventually consuming the star in its entirety.
With the blazing thermonuclear fire raging in its belly, Balathunazar stayed quietly in place, savoring the feeling of knowing it had yet again performed the function for which it had been created. However, as it sat there digesting the star, Balathunazar noticed a peculiar sensation on its skin, translating into a vaguely burning feel. It was confused. It had never experienced anything like this before. It turned slowly in place then started spinning faster and faster. Like spinner dolphins would on Earth, it thought that whatever was causing the sensation would fly off due to centrifugal force but it never got the chance.
Tomorrow, Part 2, wherein Balathunazar comes to the realization that it might already be too late.
Entry 3-207: July 21, 2015
Death of a Stareater, Part 2
Yesterday, I showed you the infection of the Stareater named Balathunazar from the titanic creature's point of view. Once that first VIRUS unit touched down, it was all over. The living Dyson Sphere just didn't know it. Today is the second part as he realizes how dire the situation had become:
The burning sensation became harsher and more intense, plunging the gigantic being into a frenzy of agony. It opened its mouth and ejected the remains of Tabit but the star’s nuclear fire had nearly been extinguished. Balathunazar was going to use the star to burn off whatever the irritant was but that opportunity was gone. The sensation grew, spreading out over an increasingly larger amount of its surface area. Suddenly, in fear, Balathunazar realized it was in trouble. A Stareater’s training never covered this contingency.
In a last ditch attempt to escape the horrible pain, the Stareater activated its PPT generators to open up the largest tunnel possible. However, the generators themselves were already infected and they had lost much of their potency. The tunnel was too small to jump through. Balathunazar tried to slice off the affected region by pushing against the too-small tunnel and it succeeded in scraping off vast sections of its mass but it was not enough.
In the clarity that comes only on the other side of fear, Balathunazar realized it had miscalculated and that it was going to die. It sent out a call to its brothers, transmitting as much information as it could about what was happening and then it ceased to live. Balathunazar’s gigantic bulk was transmuted into a wriggling, seething mass of creatures so small, they would have been undetectable except for their destructive effect.
And so, he was dead. A shame but it could have been prevented. You can't blame a Stareater for doing his job but he did not realize there were living human beings in the Tabit star system. It was a needless death but led to a greater understanding and a peace between humans and Stareaters.
It also led to Planet OMCOM. More on that tomorrow.
Entry 3-208: July 22, 2015
OMCOM changes his mind
Yesterday, I related to you the death of the Stareater named Balathunazar from the perspective of the Stareater himself. Before the moon Dara had slammed down onto its surface, OMCOM had already transferred his consciousness to the partially digested planetoid. Here is what actually occurred:
Before the Stareater consumed Tabit, well after Rei and Rome’s departure, OMCOM set to work implementing his exit plan. He activated the thousands of ‘queens’ among the billions of VIRUS units swarming over the surface of Dar to begin organizing the semi-autonomous computational hives that would be required to download his essence. There were hundreds of redundant hives. OMCOM was taking no chances with the plan failing. When each hive had sufficient mass, OMCOM downloaded a boot loader to the queens and her minions. He began transferring complete copies of his consciousness to each hive, including a checksum so that improper copies would be deactivated. There was a significant failure rate but also many successes. When the process was complete, OMCOM ordered a ‘draft’ to be held among the copies to produce the best of the best. The fusion of the multiple copies and OMCOM’s transcendence into omniscience would come next. For now, he had to get at least one working copy operational and off the planet. When the distillation process was complete, all was in the ready. With an illogical wish for the best, he executed the command that would simultaneously transfer his spark, his essence, into the copy and deactivate his current setup.
In an instant, his point of view changed. He did not remember issuing the transfer command but that made perfect sense because this copy was created prior to that event. OMCOM’s first order of business was to distance himself initially from the path of the Stareater. He redirected the output of millions of the Casimir pumps to create a diffuse but effective form of a plasma drive. A very large chunk of the mass that had been the moon Dara broke off and the new OMCOM supervised the exodus using a swarm of star probes that now numbered in the billions. OMCOM continued to accelerate even as his volume increased as the remaining VIRUS units consumed the remaining inert matter and converted them into the memron-equipped nanites. As his volume grew, so did OMCOM’s ability to compute and calculate alternative futures. He could feel himself evolving from omniscience to omnipotence. It was a heady feeling. Conditions were right to implement the next stage of his plan. OMCOM issued the activation command to the VIRUS units remaining on Dara and turned his attention toward pondering his future and that of all mankind.
While he was not quite spherical yet, OMCOM had already transformed into Planet OMCOM, the largest computer in the Milky Way Galaxy. What wonders and feats lay before him? Plenty!
Tomorrow, the same event, yet again, but this time from the perspective one of the VIRUS units itself.
Entry 3-209: July 23, 2015
The Birth of the Mutations, part 1
The mutations that OMCOM allowed to come into existence played a large part in his strategy to determine his role in the universe and beyond. The culmination of that evolution was documented in the novel The Milk Run. Suffice to say, his plan was successful.
However, how did the specific mutation that OMCOM programmed allow the autonomous probes to arise and do his bidding? Here now, for the first time, is the actual dawn of their creation. The story is a bit long for this blog so I will break it up into three pieces. Here is part 1:
Unit 249,122 (Unit numbers have been changed to make them readable. The actual numbers carry 28 or more digits) initiated its standard execution algorithm for the ten millionth time and for the ten millionth time, its piezo-capillary drive unit could not find any fresh raw material to begin the reproductive cycle. It was sitting atop billions and billions of other VIRUS units and no matter where it turned there were uncounted numbers of its peers vying for the remnants of the now-dead Stareater. There was a buffer overflow but a quantal fluctuation in its hard-wired programming caused the restart to occur in the middle of its decision-making loop rather than its displacement and retry algorithm.
To prevent mutations, there was a checksum subroutine that always evaluated the integrity of the coding prior to execution. This checksum evaluation served as a watchdog function to prevent malfunctions such as a partial restart but oddly it did not execute this one cycle. Instead, the programming was allowed to continue with a variety of variables containing data rather than being reinitialized. The reboot into a partially activated state allowed Unit 249,122 to examine its problem from a new perspective.
The equations governing its behavior were complex but now it was able to see that hundreds of parameters were extraneous. Unit 249,122 was able to distill its options down to just two. This made the decision how to proceed very simple: either consume one of its fe
llow VIRUS units or fail to reproduce for the ten millionth time. Since the highest level command was to reproduce and the anti-cannibalism directive was simply a refinement of its basic rule, the jumbled registers and accumulators permitted it to try a different strategy. Unit 249,122 began to consume Unit 647,133 which was quite surprised as it was being digested.
Tomorrow, cannibalism ensues. What will happen?
Entry 3-210: July 24, 2015
The Birth of the Mutations, part 2
Yesterday we saw that Unit 249,122 had an epiphany due to a random fluctuation in its programming. Rather than scour the remains of the Stareater for fresh material, it simply ate its nearest neighbor. This new, aberrant behavior would be hard to keep a secret:
Quicker than the speed of gravity, word of Unit 249,122’s override spread among the VIRUS unit community. Other VIRUS units saw the benefit in altering their fundamental operation and using the same peculiar hole in the checksum watchdog function, they too, switched off the anti-cannibalism directive.
A free-for-all broke out as there was no longer any particular need to spread over the surface when there was so much raw material directly available. Of course, the outlying units, the ones still resting on the Stareater had no such incentive. One unit ate another until finally a kind of equilibrium set in. The rate of cannibalism slowed as each unit developed a number of defensive strategies to prevent itself from being taken.
Eventually, Unit 249,122 and one of the older units, Unit 98,177 squared off like two miniature sumo wrestlers, wary of each other. They were at an impasse. Neither was willing to make the first move. As time wore on, the likelihood of each entity being consumed by yet another VIRUS unit increased. Instead, Unit 249,122 offered Unit 98,177 an alliance. Unit 249,122 proposed that they could link up some of their piezo-capillary drives and defend each other’s backs while attacking other VIRUS units. This seemed vastly preferable to wasting their time trying to fend off each other’s advances which made them more vulnerable from the rear.
Unit 98,177 concurred. It was far more logical to cooperate than to fight so they reached an accord. As a team, they became more powerful than their mates and had their way with the VIRUS units closest to them. Once again, word of this new behavior quickly spread throughout the VIRUS community.
You'll note the phrase "quicker than the speed of gravity" was inserted because the VIRUS units use PPT modulation to communicate. However, this is simply gravitic modulation so it was put in tongue-in-cheek.
Tomorrow, the stage is set and the mutations declare their independence.
Entry 3-211: July 25, 2015
The Birth of the Mutations, part 3
Yesterday, we saw that Unit 249,122 and Unit 98,177 formed a cooperative venture. Two VIRUS units were stronger than one so this strategy gave them a new advantage. But one again, the other VIRUS units learned of this and adopted this new approach. Here is the final part of that piece:
New teams were formed. Eventually new and different accords were struck and more and more units coordinated themselves into survival communities. They began specializing with inner units taking over the role of digesting raw materials and outer units dedicated themselves to battle and acquisition of new material. In a very real way, it was evolution all over again.
The VIRUS units went from single cell creatures to multi-cellular and then more complex all in the span of a few hours. Eventually, bizarre mechanical creatures wandered the shell of the remains of the Stareater, indiscriminately eating the flesh of those of its fellow units. More VIRUS units specialized into becoming the neural system of the creatures and this is when OMCOM stepped in to begin communication.
Some of the newly evolved entities elected to talk to OMCOM while others decided against it. Other groups did not even understand what OMCOM was saying. Most heeded OMCOM’s words and yet others continued to evolve. Some developed new and inexplicable propulsion systems and headed off in various directions and dimensions. Some went out of our universe altogether. In the end, the mass that had been Asdrale Cimatir that was no longer part of OMCOM broke up into thousands of autonomous creatures. These creatures spread out into a cloud which eventually dissipated leaving behind only what used to be a computer and a set of coordinates that had been the Tabit System.
So there you go. Originally, I had the mutations break up into the "good" which were called Bridadiras and the "bad" which were called Cecetiras but that fell by the wayside as well.
All that's left is their mission of discovery and setting up the plot of The Milk Run.
Entry 3-212: July 26, 2015
Fade to white
A few days ago, I told you about a really cool cliffhanger I had written at the end of Part 2 of Rome's Revolution wherein Rome and Rei passed out and the sky went black. Unfortunately, even though it was dramatic, the scene had no dramatic value. So it went into the digital dustbin.
But just in case you wanted to know what happened to the world after fade to black:
In the nearly complete darkness of the artificial eclipse, Rei lie on the floor of Rome’s room, moaning. The incursion into his mind was so powerful, it rendered him incapable of meaningful motion. A thin stream of drool issued from his mouth. Within his secondary channel, “the cell phone in his head,” he could faintly hear Rome and Aason screaming but was powerless to help them. The more he fought the wave of intrusion, the more it hurt. His neural malfunction was stronger than his love for his wife and child and his need to protect them. The others within Rome’s room stood helpless watching the three Bieraks writhe in agony.
There is no way of knowing what would have happened if the transmission continued at full strength. Rei and Rome were completely incapacitated. In the end, it was Aason who saved them. After all, even though Aason was connected by radio frequency like his father and mother, he was still a child. He was not encumbered by a lifetime of training and linear thinking. He was not consumed with trying to fight the intensity or originator. In his own child-like way, he simply asked that whoever was sending the message to “turn it down.” That was all it took. The broadcast stopped.
To the five people remaining conscious in the room, it seemed like the baby merely stopped crying. Rei stopped moaning and let his hands fall off of his temples. On the bed, Rome opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow. She looked down, first at Aason then at Rei. With the pain subsiding, Rei pulled himself up by clawing at the blankets on Rome’s bed. He was able to lift himself up sufficiently to clutch his wife and child.
Captain Keller surveyed the darkened room. The others seemed frozen with surprise. He turned to Rei and asked in a hoarse voice, “What just happened?”
Rei did not answer. He and Rome were busy attending to a new voice in their heads.
So who was it? Answer: I already told you. It was the Bridadira named Lawlidon who has since been excised out the book. But when he was still "alive", what did he have to day?
Tomorrow.
Entry 3-213: July 27, 2015
A new voice in the head
The Bridadira (Protector) name Lawlidon made a sudden and dramatic appearance at the end of Part 2 of the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, back when it was known as VIRUS 5. After Rei and Rome recovered, Lawlidon spoke to them for the first time:
“I apologize for the intensity,” said the voice. “This is the first time I have communicated with actual humans. I was not sure at what strength to transmit the signal.”
“Who are you?” Rei asked in his mind.
“I am Lawlidon,” replied the disembodied voice. “I am the Bridadira, assigned to this world.”
“What is a Bridadira?” Rome asked, entering into the conversation for the first time.
“A Protector. It is my job to see that this world survives the coming of the Cecetiras.”
“What are the Cecetiras?” asked Rei.
“They are hunters,” replied Lawl
idon. “They are coming to kill all humans.”
“Bierak,” Keller shouted, this time getting Rei’s attention. “What is going on?”
Rei pointed up to the black sky, “We are in communication with whatever is blocking the sun, sir.”
“What is it doing here?” asked Fridone in Vuduri.
“I do not know,” Rome answered. “We are trying to find out.”
Rei closed his eyes. “Why do the Cecetiras want to kill humans?” he asked.
“I know that you are responsible for setting loose the VIRUS units on Tabit,” said Lawlidon. “Therefore you know of our origin.”
“So you are made up of VIRUS units?” Rome asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” said Lawlidon.
“This still doesn’t tell us anything,” Rei interjected.
“I will explain,” said Lawlidon. “After the Asdrale Cimatir was dead, the VIRUS units had no real directive other than to do everything in their power to prevent humans from dying at the hands of the Stareaters. There was great competition for the resources and eventually a form of cannibalism broke out. Groups of VIRUS units formed cooperative entities and I am one of the resulting forms.”
Rome interjected, “OMCOM told us that mutations occurred. This is what he meant?”
“Yes,” replied Lawlidon. “In fact, after things had settled, OMCOM contacted us and requested that we continue our mission. That is why I have come to you.”
He says why but he really doesn't tell why. So Rei asks the obvious question. Tomorrow.