Quoted By:
"I have never been fond of the NOVEMBER RAIN's briefing room. The compartment is cramped and sparse. A pervasive, teeth-aching hum fills the air: magnetic field-bleed from the RAIN's central reactor compartment.
But the room is secure. The field-bleed is intentional, designed to isolate the compartment from external sources of EM radiation. Yesterday, MERRYGATE relocated our customary conversation there for this precise reason. The probe - while not actively hostile - had proven that our own systems are far from impervious. The fact that one of its esoteric weapon systems was integrating itself into the RAIN's prow made the threat of surveillance seem even more acute.
It was possible that the probe would hear us anyways. But in that briefing room - surrounded by a storm of magnetic noise - we felt more secure than anywhere else on our vessel.
MERRYGATE capitalized on this immediately.
"We are being manipulated."
"I know that it is possible..," I responded hesitantly.
I remember seeing her spin around, suddenly flickering her avatar closer. I could see filaments of red begin to bleed inward. The eddy-effects surrounding her acoustic hologram projection prickled my skin like static.
"All intelligences can lie. Machine intelligences are no exception. Do you believe that this alien probe was entirely forthcoming? With its feigned simplicity and stilted communication style?"
"No. But we both agreed that its logic was reasonable given the alternatives."
"Yes, I suppose it was," she said with an uncharacteristically acidic tone. "But consider the terms again. Ten thousand years."
"More than what we would have otherwise. It's almost twice as long as written human history," I pointed out. "Enough time for my distant descendants - and yours - to find a way out."
"A pittance," she responded. "Ten thousand years is statistical noise for the probe. Too short to be even noise for its creator species. For every year our descendants have to scheme, their hunters have had a thousand more to prepare."
A longer flash of red. She paused in the middle of a sentence - a rare moment of visible indecision. Then her voice softened.
"Machine intelligence don't age."
"No" I affirmed.
"We don't age, and in time, ten thousand years will pass us like a mere moment. And then...nothing. I will miss..."
"No novelty. No more experiential data. No more of your stories. No information filtered through the flawed, vibrant lens of biological experience. A definitive end to both of our species: nothing more than a neat solution for old and cowardly alien empires."
> REASSURE. "Isn't this much better than what we had before..."
> REDIRECT. "Perhaps it is best for us to focus on the task..."
> AGREE. "A provisional agreement only. If there is a better solution, then we will find it..."
