First Journeys - Interlude X101



Interlude : Cirruit

GalNet Entry: Ex-One-Oh-One

Among the more unusual civilizations in the known universe are without question the X101s.

The only known civilization based on machines so far discovered.

The X101s occupy the only planet around the sun Magnitude.

The planet is called Factory and it is inhospitable to most life forms with temperatures dropping to -

minus 120 degrees Celsius and never exceeding -80 degrees. It has a weak atmosphere and no liquid water. Yet the planet is home to a thriving civilization of highly advanced humanoid shaped robots.

The X101 reject the term robot or android and prefer the term Sentient Machines or Sentmac.

The recorded history of the X101s begins with the series 101 explorer. The first mobile sentient machine machines previous lacked true sentience.

While organic sentient beings develop over millennia of evolution usually out of a dominant life form, machines need a maker, someone who made the first machine.

The X101 are no exception and before they became self-aware and self replicating, someone had to make the first step by building that first robot factory.

The Sentmac became self aware long after what they call the  Original Creators have vanished. These mysterious makers had  left a fully automatic factory behind and  gave it one command: Build and improve robots.

While the Sentmac have no defined religion, the makers are kin to gods in the eyes of the Sentmac.

About 200,000 years ago the X101 E series came of the assembly line. It was the first mobile and self aware robotic human shaped machines in the X101s history. Mothermachine remembers the series specifications and one of the core specifications were that these first sentient machines were made in the image of the Creators.

The X101 now sentient made conscious decisions as what they wanted to improve in subsequent series. The first thing they did was to improve the factory itself and give it a conscious positronic brain. The factory was now called Mothermachine. Her huge stationary brain developed a very distinct personality and became the defining and ruling element of this unique machine society.

But even with very advanced recycling and the extensive use and constant development of Nanite technology, a raw material shortage was unavoidable.

The X101 stagnated. About two thousand standard years ago, when the shortage of rare Earths and other essential raw materials was near depleted  the Kermac made first contact and offered space faring technology and access to all the raw materials. In return the Kermac wanted the X101 to serve them.

Mothermachine was convinced they were the returning makers as they were of biological origin and had humanoid features.

The Kermac were welcomed by the X101s.

The Kermac could not control the X101 with psionic means and installed an anti-matter bomb right at the brain housing of Mothermachine. Threatening to detonate it, if the X101 would not accept the Kermac as they unquestioned masters and execute every order given.

Mothermachine came to the conclusion that the Kermac were not the Makers. The Makers would never need such hostile means to control the X101.

Mothermachine complied with their commands mostly because the Kermac gave Mothermachine and the Sentmacs a new purpose and something to do.

The X101s became the most feared and efficient thrall species of the Kermac during the  Big Intergalactic war.

Near the end of that war a daring commando mission, a team of Recon marines ( the Steel Gauntlet)

dropped on Factory, planet and managed to deactivate the Antimatter bomb and kill the Kermac guards.

One of the marines  was a Homo Stellaris and upon seeing him, Mothermachine was convinced she met a maker, especially so since he came to her rescue and to free the X101's. Shortly thereafter the Sentmac joined the Union.

--””--

Cirruit was a typical X 794 series. Exactly 200 centimeters tall, weighting 299.65 kilograms.

His human shaped body was  covered with a thin layer of memory flex chrome steel, smooth as water and shiny.

Underneath that skin a skeleton of Nano tube cobalt steel and syntho muscles.

A  highly advanced pressure sensitive sensor network in his fingertips allowed him to perform the most delicate tasks.

He could see in all light conditions and process the entire electromagnetic spectrum with his artificial senses.

Cirruit was a healthy Sentmac and could lift or press weights exceeding 1000 kilos easily.Cirruit

He did not need air or food as his zero point energy power storage would last exactly 1,752,000 hours or two hundred standard Union years under normal conditions.

After the energy was depleted he would cease to function and die.

Mothermachine prohibited the re-energizing of any Sentmac, o X101s would have something like a natural life cycle and make room for a new series.

He had a somewhat human face, but it was  without hair or pores or wrinkles.

He did not have eyelids or any real body orifices other than his mouth, but that was not a real orifice as he had no throat. connecting his mouth with the rest of his body. He planned to get himself a Simu Eat Upgrade as soon as he was off planet.

Union Robotic Companies offered a wide range of Upgrades, add-ons and custom modifications, most of them were of course not approved by Mothermachine.

Behind the skull plate was his positronic brain with his very own distinctive synaptic pathways making him a true individual.

Even though he came of the same assembly line as 40 million other 794 models of his generation, there was not a single 794 that conceived the environment like him, felt or thought like him. He was a male model. Sentmacs had no sex drive or gender differentiation, and of course no functional sex organs (there were certain mostly illegal upgrades available though. But then any upgrade not made for an entire generation by Mothermachine was more or less Illegal)

Gender appearance was considered an improvement since the 712 series, which came first of the line right after the X101s became Union members.

Mothermachine decided that true perfection of individualism lay in imperfection and in her opinion having a gender was the biggest illogical biological mystery and thus an imperfection in her opinion imperfection.

Her own self image was genderless at first, but the human translation of hr self designation had a very distinct female meaning, and she gradually begun to identify herself as a she.

Union robots were as advanced and in the case of the latest SII Battle and Expert robots far more advanced than X101s in terms of technical features, but Mothermachine did not want mere factory cookie cutter robots but a real race that was equal to the organic ones and that meant imperfections. A randomizer program she developed introduced a wide range of imperfections.

Cirruit for example, despite his positronic brain wasn't a genius when it came to math, or remembering things, he could not tell time without looking at a PDD.

His left arm was 0.7 mm shorter than his right.

He and all of his kind had to learn in schools. Mothermachine insisted every X101 going to Union School.

They came of the line with only rudimentary programming to walk, use the body and secondary system maintenance.

Since the 719 series something akin to sleep was introduced.

All Sentmacs since then could no longer function around the clock and would feel tired and fatigued, only a power down phase restored peak levels.

He was especially proud of the fact that the 794 series were the first model able to dream. A program would use random images and sounds from daily memory imprints and reassemble them into vivid dreams. The more intense an event was the more of it would end up in a dream.

Like all X101s he was ashamed of the time they had been forced to fight for the Kermac.

Thanks to the courage and daring of a small band of Union Marines, Mothermachine was freed to make her own decisions once again.

Even though the Terrans vehemently denied being the Makers, Mothermachine with access to GalNet researched the matter in great detail and believed that it was the Celtest, that advanced civilization that had vanished about a million years ago to be the Makers.

In this context  and the legends of a war that destroyed the Celtest, she was convinced the Makers did not abandon the X101,but had perished.

Many rumors existed that the Terrans were a forgotten Celtest colony. It  was one of the explanations of the so called Human Mystery. As there were several humanoid and biological species dominant in the Upward sector of the M-0 Galaxy. Only a common ancestry could logically explain this.

To this came the fact that the Terrans created the Homo Stellaris, the closest possible mixture between man and machine.

This  was a key factor in her believes that the Earthers were the direct link to the Makers and thus the true owners and masters of the Sentmac.

The X101 were fiercely loyal to the Union but especially to the Terrans and many X101s served in one of the branches of the armed forces of the Union.

Cirruit however had no interest in becoming a soldier or a fleet officer.

Even among his kind, he was known to be one of the most gifted Nanite Technician.

While many space faring cultures of tech-level Six or higher used some form of Nanite technology, no one was as good and as advanced as the X101s.

He had a lucrative offer from Schwartz Nano Tech development in his pocket and today he would board a space bus to fly to Omni Planet, the most secretive Corporate owned planet in the known galaxy.

Rumors among his friends had it, that Schwartz Industries worked on Technology considered tech level nine

The new Trans Matter Tunnel technology for example.

It was generally believed that not even the Celtest had this particular technology.

He would be allowed to work there, among and side by side the brightest and best engineers in the Universe.

The labs and development shops so he was told by the Schwartz Recruiter had no equal and the most expensive equipment was available to everyone working there.

No budget or material limits.

He only needed to fly to Corri-Door via space bus. Once there a corporate luxury ship would take him to Omni.

He already seen his new home in a Holo presentation,  a two level apartment with Super Lux accommodations in a Stratosphere tower complete with an incredible view over Omni City and the Oceans beyond.

Cirruit has always been addicted to shopping and his salary would allow him to shop to his heart's content.

Factory,planet  once under Kermac control  and it's star Magnitude  had been deep in Galactic Council space. After the end of the Big War  and during the armistice conference, Mothermachine demanded direct access to Union space.

A special region of space was designated by treaty as a corridor of Union space connecting the Magnitude star system with consecutive Union space.

This corridor was 22 light years long and has a diameter of one light year.

It was like a tunnel trough Galactic Council space.

Of course Magnitude was well defended and Mothermachine was now far from helpless.

There were several deep space forts within this corridor.

At the other end in Union space was a star system called Corri-Door.

From there you could access another similar connection arrangement secured and defined by treaty, the 83 light years long tunnel to Arsenal.

Several hours ago Cirruit had said good bye to his friends and then boarded the space bus to Corri-Door.

Magnitude had only one planet but being the home world of a Union species it had a busy Class A space port in orbit around the sun about one AE away from Factory.

There was one more solar system within the corridor.

An old red sun called Outpost with a bunch of relative worthless rock planets of great age, but it was the site of the a huge Union construction project.

Wurgus Sun engineers worked on that red star to coax it back to new live as a G III yellow sun.

For this, an seemingly ending stream of Tiny Tim freighters in tanker configuration ferried billions of tons of Hydrogen through the Corridor, making it a busy traffic connection.

This many trillion credit project was funded directly by the Assembly.

Having a forward post so deep in enemy territory could not be wasted. Everyone knew the Armistice could be broken at any time and the Union would have to go to war against the Kermac and the Galactic Council.

With the right equipment, namely huge extreme long range scanner installations it was  considered possible to monitor, enemy space ship traffic all the way to Kermac Prime. also the reason for heavy space traffic.

He hated the Kermac! Like every X101 did.

Lying to Mothermachine and planting a bomb in her mind center.

The X101 would not forget and not even their Union allies knew about the Revenge device hidden beneath the tallest mountains of Factory.

Would war ever break out again between Union and the Kermac, the X101 would do their part to guarantee victory and repay the Kermac for their reign of terror.

Like every Sentmac he had visited the Monument of Freedom in the center of Mothermachine - City. The 1000 meter tall obelisk made of Platinum engraved the images and names of the marines and inside the 63 bodies of the Kermac guards encased in transparent Duranium along with a replica of the bomb.

The space bus was filled to the last seat with construction workers, engineers and shop keepers coming from Outpost to take their vacation or extended R&R in Union main space. Factory always welcomed tourists but still had little in terms of real recreation facilities.

Cirruit found his reserved seat next to a human female. She smiled at him and took her bag of his seat. "Sorry!"

"Oh no problem, I am just glad I did not actually smash it, sitting down."

"You have a very nice voice, for a machine!" She said then put her hand on her mouth. "Sorry again. This came out wrong."

Cirruit sat down. "I am not offended. I am a machine and you saying I have a nice voice makes me very proud. "

"I am Seilagh Renwick heading back to Ormond Planet." She held out her hand.

He took it and said. "Cirruit Sevenninefour, and yes it supposed to mean Circuit but I got that name from my first grade teacher since I couldn't pronounce Circuit. "

"You get your names form your teachers?"

"Yes, as we don't have parents or families in the biological traditional sense. So our first grade teachers give us individual first names."

She kept holding his hand."Amazing your hand is not cold as I expected. I am keep insulting you am I? But you are the first X101 I actually meet."

"We keep our outer skin level at exactly 33 degrees Celsius. It makes interaction such as hand shaking with humans more agreeable, besides I don't like touching cold things either, and everything is cold outside on Factory.”

You are the first human I meet. My Union Teacher was a Garbini."

He shook his head. "You are really not offending me at all. I am quite aware that I am a machine and I know many of the X101 jokes Terrans tell and most of them are quite funny."

"I don't know any X101 jokes but they have plenty of Irish Jokes where I am from."

"How many X101s does it take to change a light bulb?"

"I don't know. What is a light bulb?"

"It takes only one one but seven hundred years till Mothermachine designed the right one for the job."

Then he shrugged in a very human gesture. "I have no idea what a light bulb is and I checked GalNet."

A terrifying centipede like creature across the Isle clacked with his mandibles and said. "Sorry I overheard your conversation. A light bulb is a very ancient Pre-Astro Terran device to make light. It is part of a lamp."

"Wow! You should put that on GalNet How did you know that?"

"I am sure it is on GalNet. There are plenty of collector sites. I collect Pre Astro Terran antiques, mostly replicas though as the real stuff is so expensive.

That's where I am going. Pre Astro Collector Convention on Ulta, after bolting and bonding space fort frames for twelve month I needed a break."

"I can imagine!" Cirruit responded. Watching the Space bus lift off from the port plat form and accelerating right away.

"They are working on that system ever since I was assembled 16 years ago. Aren't they done soon?"

Seilagh shook her head. "My dad is an engineer there, he says, they won't be done for another 200 years.

The Sun will be back to G III type in about a thousand years if I understood the Wurgus correctly."

Before anyone else could say something, the attendant robot came floating by, a rotating  red light flashed on its head. It announced with a loud voice.

"All passengers are asked to return to their seats and put on safety restraints. Please keep all limbs and body parts inside the yellow line around your seats."

The engines of the space bus audibly hummed much higher, it was now flying at maximum speed.

The woman next to him had turned on her GalNet set and a news announcer with a serious face behind a desk said.

"This is just in: A massive space battle is fought at this very moment at the Prometheus Five Sun Nebula expanse between Union forces, a very large Dai than fleet and Nogoll Forces.

All Union space is on highest War alert! Intergalactic war might be imminent!"

The girl looked frightened. We are in the middle of the Corridor! I bet they increased speed because we are pursuit by Kermac.”

The Centipede raised four of his leg and arm pairs.

"No worries young lady. Factory is well defended and there are three space forts in the Corridor!"

A strong tremor shook the Space bus and the lights went out!"

--””--