Star Fields

Chapter No.178. New Plan.

Chapter No.178. New Plan.

It's like starting over again.

Molly, Alexa and I now realize that we were never human, and that was true for all of the other human-based androids. Our plan to understand what really happened was going to be difficult at best because we had no way to search back through the history of the Phoenix Project. However, that information had to be in the system or at least somewhere.

We decided to suspend the command meetings after our usual communal supper. We decided to allow the classical music and dance ensembles to perform instead. I made up some bogus explanation that we were not at risk anymore, so we didn't require the nightly meetings. In the meantime, Molly, Alexa and I met in the hidden chamber to discuss our plans to determine the truth.

"Okay," Molly said. 'I've been able to find a packet of data in the stacks that is purported to have information about the Phoenix Project, and it indicates that there wasn't such a project."

"You mean that it was a fabrication from the beginning?"

"That's what it means. It appears that much of Space Command was fabricated. I would think it was because of the early reliance on AI to run the conquest of space. Our problem is that we were fabricated and don't really know the true history of the space travel effort."

"This is really crazy," Alexa said. "We are the product of AI trying to understand its deception of the truth."

"The only truth we can effectively rely on is what we know after our waking up on the Explorer-1," Molly said. "What happened before that is essentially unknown."

"Except that we know it had to have a beginning," I said.

"I did find a reference to a machine that was called Colossus. Apparently, it was the considered the ultimate AI computer system."

"Sort of like HAL 9000."

"Yeah, but it was even more sophisticated."

"This sounds a lot like the dystopian science fiction series 'Westworld'. The android like people in that world were essentially run by a central computer system, but they thought of themselves as being human. Apparently, that's what we're doing."

"We should be able to find some reference to the system that was built to create us," Molly said. "Maybe it's still on Earth, or in orbit, or somewhere in space."

I rubbed my jaw. "Yes, that's possible, but it's been a long time since the annihilation event. If it's still in existence, it might have deteriorated to point of being useless."

"Well," Molly said. "I'll try to see if I can scan Earth to see if there is some way to detect it."

"Good idea," I said, gesturing to her.

"Are you going to reveal this new revelation to the others?" Alexa asked.

I looked at her for a moment before replying. "I think it wise not to reveal it, at least not until we have the complete story. It could instigate emotional responses that would upset the collective."

"Yeah, like a revolt," Alexa said.

I nodded. "Exactly. Let's verify it before we release it to the entire collective. I have a lot of questions that are not getting answered. For one thing, why are we the only ones who think we were human. Is this the result of the quantum communication that's hooked to our brains, or is it something in the core processor code?"

"What I would like to know is how could they stuff all of the fabricated memories and personality traits into a computer system way back at the beginning?" Molly asked. "We're the ones that supposedly expanded our computer system to do that sort of thing."