Project SALLI

Prologue

200 years before the adventures of T'kyra

"We're running out of time!" 

"I KNOW. But if we don't get this right it is more than just our lives at stake." 

"How can this project stop them?!"

A huge explosion was heard by all the staff, shaking the whole shelter for a second or two. All went quiet, just for a moment, as the emergency lights flickered on. The computer broke the silence.

"OUTER PERIMETER BREACHED. ETA THREE MINUTES." The three officers immediately looked to their time readouts, and then each other.

"At least that computer hasn't turned on us."

'That' Computer was created by the same team working now, under a government research plan named the life project. The aim of this project was to create a computer that was its own entity, completely isolated from other forms of artificial intelligence. 

When the planet united in world peace, the technology from all the major governments was too, creating a vast global network of interconnected systems. Computers and machines had become so advanced that humans no longer needed to manage their affairs on a large scale. Mankind had let tech take over their planet, until it no longer belonged to man. It belonged to machines.

"Start the Core format!"

Project SALLI was built on the same foundations as the computer core, designed to be able to maintain the isolation of its core programming from the world tech systems (WTS). However, when the war started, the government ordered SALLI to be reliant on humans. It was hoped that this project could protect a community by being the most advanced A.I. that the world had seen whilst keeping on the side of humans. 

Tech, though, had been designed by humans to be extremely efficient in their work. Under the collective power if the WTS, they had become very efficient at ending human lives.

"Core secured, Professor." 

"Good. They will never get hold of the information necessary to activate SALLI. I wish we had more time. I only hope the host is mature enough to teach her."

The sound of sirens cut the professor off, and mechanical noises were heard drawing closer.

"This is it. Gas the room. Oh, check that the scanner is set." 

"Yes sir, it is fully functional." 

"Good. My co workers, what we have done today may one day save our kind. But the WTS must never know what we have created. Our knowledge can never leave this room, and must die with us."

As the professor looked around the darkened room, a scattering of red light was cast on the faces of his team. It had them taken six years to get SALLI to this point, yet none of them would see the fruits of their labour. 

It had been decided that knowledge of this project was to be restricted to the team members. Not even the people who commissioned it had any idea of how the team achieved its goal. In order to gain details of projects like this one, the WTS had to procure the information directly from the project members by hacking their bodies whilst the scientists were alive. To stop that from happening here, it had been decided that the team would deny them this knowledge in the event of discovery by the techs by ending their own lives.

As the gas filled the room, everyone was proud of their achievement. No one on earth had done what they had. Hope was what had sustained the team through the constant threat of the machines, and soon the ordeal would over. The Team for project SALLI at least, had won.