Post by drakadorchaos on Jan 26, 2022 0:14:03 GMT
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
The Core of the Network cyberspace was busy. Countless calculations and predictions ran every minute, data coming in and going out. Most notably however, today both proxies were present in a direct link, still compiling data in preparation for the upcoming meeting, shimmering and glowing in mathematical shapes and hedrons, placed in impossible spaces folding into and out of themselves, displaying that this place was unbound by the physical world.
He was also here, Deralith the Custodian of the Network. There had been numerous developments in the past couple weeks, CONA, SAGA, Corona, Yog-Narr, Aedleshaven and the list continued.
Whilst he kept an outline of info on everything whilst dealing with his own self-assigned tasks, there were also a number of independent field agents which had been called back for this session, it would be interesting to see how the pieces they collected would fall together.
However, more importantly, there were also various issues at hand they would have to deal with soon. The dataflow indicated that preparations came to a close, it seems both Qarvaton and Aszeven were ready to share and present their results.
Lost Star; Arc Town District; Several Weeks prior
Outside Aedleshaven Corridor; Network Ancerium harvester; One week prior
Aszeven observed the harvesters leaving the corridor from one of the Escorts. They were far from optimised, but they would make a good foundation for future generations of harvesters, although these new harvesters would likely have to work in different areas for the time being.
The sub-routines were calculating yields and efficiency of the latest hauls of harvesters and making predictions for areas like Garrens Clarity or the Fountainhead, as a feeling of resentment crawled into the personality matrix, something he didn’t feel particularly often.
They were out here to begin with due to the issues with Aedleshaven and Orillia.
Nobody knew them here, but it would be hardly stretch to assume they would’ve forced them out of the corridor if they didn’t pledge to their disfavorable alliance of natives, they had been able to stay as long as they did solely because they were harvesting in remote areas but he preferred not to stretch the favour of the situation too long.
A brief impulse of tiredness came. First Yog-narr, now Aedleshaven and the Natives; and the Coronans were already on their way, since they had come here they had been faced with nothing but problems after problems.
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
The meeting had started, data flows connected, links established and information went back and forth at speeds biological beings would be incapable of following, yet it was an almost comforting familiar feeling to the personality matrix of the AI, being connected to familiar programming.
Qarvaton was the first one to begin, he had been keeping track of military aspects and security.
“Greetings. As per usual, all following reports will be accompanied by the corresponding data in the background. As you all already know I have been to Tridex on the orders of our Custodian, the results of which you have already received, hence I will only list the summary for the protocols. At Tridex I have found various contacts and was able to inform myself about the state of technology and warfare in this galaxy. Overall, it seems most of the inhabitants do not have the level of sophistication of our own technology, however due to the history of warfare they are not to be underestimated. Due to the recent galactic events we have not purchased any sample technologies.”
The topic ended without any questions from his own or Aszevens, side, it had already been discussed when Qarvaton returned from the exhibition.
“In regards to our current issues and shortages, my current calculations confirmed the proposition that the production of further ships would be unwise at the time, instead we will be producing reserve parts for quick replacements and repairs.”
There was a brief pause and a moment of discontent coming from Qarvatons end of the connection. He seemed to be displeased but was aware the following was necessary.
“Furthermore, the proposition to move the fleet into deepspace to preserve resources has been tested and passed. The main fleet will remain idle for the time being but Escort patrols will continue in order to keep up with events in the galaxy and potentially gather favours or information. Report end.”
At this point Aszeven intervened.
“Have the limited Ancerium reserves in regards to continuing patrols been taken into account?”
“Affirmative, patrols are being continued on the premise of the halted fleet movement and resulting conservation of fuel.”
Qarvaton confirmed, there was another confirmation from Aszevens end as he ran through the calculations that came along with the message.
Lost Star; Arc Town District; Several Weeks prior
After several days of searching, he had finally found new traces, although he was now far from Arc Town, his original operation area. There had been information on a plane from a organisation referred to as ‘#IMAGO’ heading off to another area, whilst most of the contents of the flight were irrelevant for him, there were clues that there was a shipment of psionic equipment from the AotP with them. However, on route it seems to have crashed due to reasons unknown to him, he would have to find out where and why.
Deepspace near Tridex; Network escort ship; A couple weeks prior
Qarvaton pondered on the results of his visit at Tridex, as the exhibition hall faded on the sensors and he reintegrated himself with the ships grid instead of the rather limited Android body. He saw samples of technology, gathered contacts and learned about the galaxy's state of warfare. It had been interesting. However, due to the events that unfolded at the end, he had been incapable of purchasing any tech or samples whatsoever.
It was unfortunate.
However, the matters of the overall fleet were more pressing at the time, the moment he had received the message he already knew they would have to cut their spendings, more so than they already did. Regardless of that, the contacts he had gathered would still prove useful in the future, even if it was for other purposes.
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
After Qarvaton closed his report, Aszeven was next, he had been responsible for the economic aspects of their operations, he had been quite busy due to the recent galactic events especially when stocks and prices began their crashes.
“To expand on our economic situation I will start with the situation of our ancerium harvesting projects. Due to the recent developments in the Aedleshaven Corridor that we are all aware of, the Harvesters had to be moved to other areas, they are currently on their way towards the ‘Fountainhead’ and ‘Garrens Clarity’, whilst these areas will only yield a portion of the former income it will still be worthwhile to mitigate the effects. However, since these are more open areas escorts should be stationed nearby to ensure security.”
Aszeven paused and waited for a brief moment, this time it was Qarvaton who sent an affirmative signal, he did not interrupt him however.
”According to my current calculations we may still run into shortages eventually, however we could mitigate this by making a deal with CONA.”
Now Qarvaton interrupted him.
”CONA, even in light of what the Prince would have decided? You would still choose to assist native supremacists to gain economic benefits?”
Commotion and sub-programs began stirring up under the surface of the two AI’s facades.
”Even in light of our moral dilemma, which I am well aware of, attaining resources and maintaining the fleet should currently be our priority, we possibly would not even have to assist them militarily, we could negotiate a deal about evacuation and other services.”
Aszeven noted.
Before either of the two could continue they were cut off, this time it was Deralith himself who intervened.
“A decision in regards to the local conflicts will be felled later, I will elaborate on our decision when the time comes, please continue with your report for the time being.”
Deralith detected the flood of calculations, predictions and artificial emotions calm down, Aszeven continued momentarily.
”Due to the current shortages the research programs into superweapons and megastructures in Ancerious have been slowed down, if we want to gain any significant ground on either topic we will have to focus on one side. On a final note along with stopping ship production as Qarvaton already noted, we will start stockpiling resources in case we need them later, although that will detract from our imports and exports. Report end.”
The stockpiling of resources was yet another way of mitigating the economic crisis effects, whilst it would indeed interfere with their kolleronic imports and exports, the rates were less than favourable currently anyways and they will have significantly reduced demand if they stop producing ships.
Lost Star; Unknown; Several Weeks prior
Something had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong. Slowly he dragged his body across the back alleys, as a group of enforcers followed him, he would have to get away from here.
They caught him off guard.
As he stumbled he looked down on his artificial body, hearing the voices behind him, as his pain receptors screamed.
He was severely damaged, it didn’t look like he'd make it, communications had been cut off. If only he could get away from the enforcers somehow…
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
Both his Proxies had brought forth their points, data and reports, usually Gadreth would’ve reported on relations and political issues but due to his absence that was now his task.
He compiled the last bits of datas, setting priority marks and began.
“Following our arrival I have studied the political landscape of this Galaxy and been on missions to gain favours and secure contacts, as you both know. The recent return of a number of our field assets, combined with Information I have attained in other ways, has provided me with Info and led to decisions I will now share with you.”
He pondered a moment where to start and decided for the contacts.
”In our short time here we have come to know about a large variety of nations with help of the Ancnet which is now slowly breaking down, however according to our current information I have come to the conclusion that pursuing a contact with Elwar, a fellow AI of relatively neutral standing, would be desirable for us. Furthermore we have begun to establish contacts with Vaplana, a pacifistic faction with a quite interesting network of contacts and informants, whilst we have not revealed ourselves to them yet we are currently in the process of collecting favours but the war may slow our progress down or accelerate it, that remains to be seen.”
He paused, waiting for questions.
“What about the Union of Worlds?”
Qarvaton spoke out the obvious.
“Regarding this and a number of other factions. There have of course also been a number of other potential contacts, however with the war on the horizon we will have to wait and see how the situation develops first.”
There were no other questions.
”In a similar manner we will have to address the various threats which are currently roaming this galaxy. We currently lack the forces and connections to deal with all of them accordingly and trying to draw in one of the sides of the conflicts will likely only result in making us target of the other. Firstly there is Yog-Narr, the nature of which you are both aware of, we lack the forces and firepower to take down a foe like him currently and even if we had it, reaching him is currently near suicidal undertaking due to the battle which will soon erupt in the corridor. Due to these reasons we will be biding our time for the moment, there are other tasks more realistic to pursue and whilst we are attending those we will build up connections and work on the superweapon program to deal with him once the opportunity comes.”
Aszeven took note of this and took it and the accompanied dataflow as an indicator they will reallocate the megastructure research to the superweapon one.
”The next pending issue is Corona, the local superpower of the galaxy, in similar manner to Yog-Narr they are currently too large of a target, however, they are in decline and I do expect them to be beaten at Aedleshaven in one way or another, following that they will likely break apart into civil war. Given the base of their economy has all but vanished.”
He paused again, this time there were no questions, he could feel a certain unrest in the personality matrixes of his two Proxies, he was well aware of the amount of issues they would have to leave unattended but given their situation the Network would have to set priorities.
”Finally to my decision on whether to and on which side to participate in the incoming war.
For the time being the Network will remain neutral.”
He immediately felt the datastreams of upcoming questions, but the Proxies knew better than to interrupt him.
”There are a number of reasons to gain favour with one or the other side, one which Aszeven has already brought up is economic benefits through negotiating with CONA or rather Orillia, on the counter side their actions are less than favourable and now, before the war even started, it has already been shown that their ideals are nothing but a pretence to rally natives under their name in order to gain power.
On the other hand we have SAGA, an alliance solely created to stop them, lacking severely in cohesion due to the necessity to accept anyone who can bring ships to fight in turn leading to numerous individuals simply hiding in their midst for protection after having committed severe atrocities against native and colonial nations alike. Whilst the Prince would likely assist SAGA, if he had the choice, we do not have the choice in this case due to two major points. The first would be the Army of the Panopticon, no matter which side we join or which allegiances we make it will ultimately detract from the resources we can allocate to track them down and work against them since whichever side we would join, we would become a target of the other. The second point is, to join either of the sides we would have to reveal our identity to the public which would be detrimental to our tasks at hand and in future.”
Once more, he paused and waited, notably he felt the stream of calculations and questions slow down and neither of the two brought up any additional points. He nodded himself, they learned new perspectives quickly, as usual.
”This point aside, we will try to get a hold of psionic research materials in near future and see who can assist us in such, whilst I do not expect or intent to field psionic technology, it will be an important step to learn how to deal with our current target effectively and may also become useful in the future.
In regards to our operation regarding the refugees in the Corridor, it seems to have been decently successful, a lot of the ships have been evacuated or been able to do emergency repairs with the paramilitary forces and mercenaries we hired through proxies.”
He frowned internally. Originally, this would have been the end of his report and the meeting however, with the return of a lot of their field assets a new one had been brought to his attention only hours before the meeting.
”There is one last point we will have to address. According to the reports and also lack of reports of some of our field Androids, we have reason to assume that some of our assets have disappeared from our grid in some way or another. We currently do not know why or how, but most notably, the disappearances only partially match with activity maps of the AotP. This means that something may be out there deliberately targeting our field assets in some form or manner and given our current state of information it may as well be connected to the traverse incident. I will be investigating this matter, for the time being either of you will make regular contact with your field drones, to keep track of anomalies and disappearances.”
This time he could feel… unrest, concern. It was rare someone was, or was even capable of, targeting them directly, and only a few months after the traverse incident it was all the more concerning, whatever the cause was it seemed to be not just random disappearances, as if something deliberately targeted them, which likely meant it knew them.
Deralith sighed internally
”Report End.”
The meeting closed, there were still dataflows going back and forth, questions, mission parametres and data requests, but soon both Aszeven and Qarvaton would return to their own tasks, old and new alike.
There certainly would have been faster, more efficient ways to discuss and process all this information given their nature as AI, similar to how background info was processed even at this very moment, but it was only an additional layer to it, usually done for the protocols and they were not too much effort on the Network workload. The Prince insisted on them as they were easier to process for him than a string of AI programming, not that he wasn’t capable of it, the Prince was his creator after all.
Query: Compile all data on disappearances and lost contacts and search for patterns.
Lost Star; Unknown; Several Weeks prior
He collapsed at the corner of a building, behind a heap of trash, he still heard the voices, but they were slowly getting farther.
It didn’t matter anymore.
His internal systems were too damaged, the sub processes had already given out on his way here but he could still feel that Android body's systems would collapse any minute now.
From the shadows, something was approaching, something… humanoid.
He couldn’t even get up anymore, to run, let alone fight.
The figure was… of average size, seemed calm oddly enough it showed no signs of hostility.
“My, you seem to have been caught up in quite a lot of trouble. You seem to be in need of… assistance.”
He stared at it, as it was the only thing he could do, his visual sensors started to glitch.
If only he could’ve at least finished his mission and got what had so far back to the network.
…if only he could prevent info about the network falling into other peoples hands.
“Who are you? What do you want?!”
The figure leaned over him, he could make out a faint malicious smile.
“Me? I’m… but a wanderer. Though I wonder… what is it, that you desire?”
The Core of the Network cyberspace was busy. Countless calculations and predictions ran every minute, data coming in and going out. Most notably however, today both proxies were present in a direct link, still compiling data in preparation for the upcoming meeting, shimmering and glowing in mathematical shapes and hedrons, placed in impossible spaces folding into and out of themselves, displaying that this place was unbound by the physical world.
He was also here, Deralith the Custodian of the Network. There had been numerous developments in the past couple weeks, CONA, SAGA, Corona, Yog-Narr, Aedleshaven and the list continued.
Whilst he kept an outline of info on everything whilst dealing with his own self-assigned tasks, there were also a number of independent field agents which had been called back for this session, it would be interesting to see how the pieces they collected would fall together.
However, more importantly, there were also various issues at hand they would have to deal with soon. The dataflow indicated that preparations came to a close, it seems both Qarvaton and Aszeven were ready to share and present their results.
Lost Star; Arc Town District; Several Weeks prior
The Android had made several mental notes as he found the latest trace in one of the shipping terminals. He had been sent to Lost star, like many others, to search for traces of the elusive Army of the Panopticon. So far they were scarce, far and few between and his sisters and brethren seemed to do no better. He would have to keep searching and stay on the watch to prevent getting caught, be that by the Army itself or local contacts they may have.
Outside Aedleshaven Corridor; Network Ancerium harvester; One week prior
Aszeven observed the harvesters leaving the corridor from one of the Escorts. They were far from optimised, but they would make a good foundation for future generations of harvesters, although these new harvesters would likely have to work in different areas for the time being.
The sub-routines were calculating yields and efficiency of the latest hauls of harvesters and making predictions for areas like Garrens Clarity or the Fountainhead, as a feeling of resentment crawled into the personality matrix, something he didn’t feel particularly often.
They were out here to begin with due to the issues with Aedleshaven and Orillia.
Nobody knew them here, but it would be hardly stretch to assume they would’ve forced them out of the corridor if they didn’t pledge to their disfavorable alliance of natives, they had been able to stay as long as they did solely because they were harvesting in remote areas but he preferred not to stretch the favour of the situation too long.
A brief impulse of tiredness came. First Yog-narr, now Aedleshaven and the Natives; and the Coronans were already on their way, since they had come here they had been faced with nothing but problems after problems.
If only Gadreth was still here.
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
The meeting had started, data flows connected, links established and information went back and forth at speeds biological beings would be incapable of following, yet it was an almost comforting familiar feeling to the personality matrix of the AI, being connected to familiar programming.
Qarvaton was the first one to begin, he had been keeping track of military aspects and security.
“Greetings. As per usual, all following reports will be accompanied by the corresponding data in the background. As you all already know I have been to Tridex on the orders of our Custodian, the results of which you have already received, hence I will only list the summary for the protocols. At Tridex I have found various contacts and was able to inform myself about the state of technology and warfare in this galaxy. Overall, it seems most of the inhabitants do not have the level of sophistication of our own technology, however due to the history of warfare they are not to be underestimated. Due to the recent galactic events we have not purchased any sample technologies.”
The topic ended without any questions from his own or Aszevens, side, it had already been discussed when Qarvaton returned from the exhibition.
“In regards to our current issues and shortages, my current calculations confirmed the proposition that the production of further ships would be unwise at the time, instead we will be producing reserve parts for quick replacements and repairs.”
There was a brief pause and a moment of discontent coming from Qarvatons end of the connection. He seemed to be displeased but was aware the following was necessary.
“Furthermore, the proposition to move the fleet into deepspace to preserve resources has been tested and passed. The main fleet will remain idle for the time being but Escort patrols will continue in order to keep up with events in the galaxy and potentially gather favours or information. Report end.”
At this point Aszeven intervened.
“Have the limited Ancerium reserves in regards to continuing patrols been taken into account?”
“Affirmative, patrols are being continued on the premise of the halted fleet movement and resulting conservation of fuel.”
Qarvaton confirmed, there was another confirmation from Aszevens end as he ran through the calculations that came along with the message.
It was true that stopping the fleet movement would bring a certain risk of eventual discovery with it, however, it was minimal compared to the risk of running out of Ancerium due to the shortages. In case of emergency the fleet was still able to jump or fight back when discovered.
Lost Star; Arc Town District; Several Weeks prior
After several days of searching, he had finally found new traces, although he was now far from Arc Town, his original operation area. There had been information on a plane from a organisation referred to as ‘#IMAGO’ heading off to another area, whilst most of the contents of the flight were irrelevant for him, there were clues that there was a shipment of psionic equipment from the AotP with them. However, on route it seems to have crashed due to reasons unknown to him, he would have to find out where and why.
Deepspace near Tridex; Network escort ship; A couple weeks prior
Qarvaton pondered on the results of his visit at Tridex, as the exhibition hall faded on the sensors and he reintegrated himself with the ships grid instead of the rather limited Android body. He saw samples of technology, gathered contacts and learned about the galaxy's state of warfare. It had been interesting. However, due to the events that unfolded at the end, he had been incapable of purchasing any tech or samples whatsoever.
It was unfortunate.
However, the matters of the overall fleet were more pressing at the time, the moment he had received the message he already knew they would have to cut their spendings, more so than they already did. Regardless of that, the contacts he had gathered would still prove useful in the future, even if it was for other purposes.
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
After Qarvaton closed his report, Aszeven was next, he had been responsible for the economic aspects of their operations, he had been quite busy due to the recent galactic events especially when stocks and prices began their crashes.
“To expand on our economic situation I will start with the situation of our ancerium harvesting projects. Due to the recent developments in the Aedleshaven Corridor that we are all aware of, the Harvesters had to be moved to other areas, they are currently on their way towards the ‘Fountainhead’ and ‘Garrens Clarity’, whilst these areas will only yield a portion of the former income it will still be worthwhile to mitigate the effects. However, since these are more open areas escorts should be stationed nearby to ensure security.”
Aszeven paused and waited for a brief moment, this time it was Qarvaton who sent an affirmative signal, he did not interrupt him however.
”According to my current calculations we may still run into shortages eventually, however we could mitigate this by making a deal with CONA.”
Now Qarvaton interrupted him.
”CONA, even in light of what the Prince would have decided? You would still choose to assist native supremacists to gain economic benefits?”
Commotion and sub-programs began stirring up under the surface of the two AI’s facades.
”Even in light of our moral dilemma, which I am well aware of, attaining resources and maintaining the fleet should currently be our priority, we possibly would not even have to assist them militarily, we could negotiate a deal about evacuation and other services.”
Aszeven noted.
Before either of the two could continue they were cut off, this time it was Deralith himself who intervened.
“A decision in regards to the local conflicts will be felled later, I will elaborate on our decision when the time comes, please continue with your report for the time being.”
Deralith detected the flood of calculations, predictions and artificial emotions calm down, Aszeven continued momentarily.
”Due to the current shortages the research programs into superweapons and megastructures in Ancerious have been slowed down, if we want to gain any significant ground on either topic we will have to focus on one side. On a final note along with stopping ship production as Qarvaton already noted, we will start stockpiling resources in case we need them later, although that will detract from our imports and exports. Report end.”
The stockpiling of resources was yet another way of mitigating the economic crisis effects, whilst it would indeed interfere with their kolleronic imports and exports, the rates were less than favourable currently anyways and they will have significantly reduced demand if they stop producing ships.
Lost Star; Unknown; Several Weeks prior
Something had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong. Slowly he dragged his body across the back alleys, as a group of enforcers followed him, he would have to get away from here.
They caught him off guard.
As he stumbled he looked down on his artificial body, hearing the voices behind him, as his pain receptors screamed.
He was severely damaged, it didn’t look like he'd make it, communications had been cut off. If only he could get away from the enforcers somehow…
Network Cyberspace; Central Core; Today
Both his Proxies had brought forth their points, data and reports, usually Gadreth would’ve reported on relations and political issues but due to his absence that was now his task.
He compiled the last bits of datas, setting priority marks and began.
“Following our arrival I have studied the political landscape of this Galaxy and been on missions to gain favours and secure contacts, as you both know. The recent return of a number of our field assets, combined with Information I have attained in other ways, has provided me with Info and led to decisions I will now share with you.”
He pondered a moment where to start and decided for the contacts.
”In our short time here we have come to know about a large variety of nations with help of the Ancnet which is now slowly breaking down, however according to our current information I have come to the conclusion that pursuing a contact with Elwar, a fellow AI of relatively neutral standing, would be desirable for us. Furthermore we have begun to establish contacts with Vaplana, a pacifistic faction with a quite interesting network of contacts and informants, whilst we have not revealed ourselves to them yet we are currently in the process of collecting favours but the war may slow our progress down or accelerate it, that remains to be seen.”
He paused, waiting for questions.
“What about the Union of Worlds?”
Qarvaton spoke out the obvious.
“Regarding this and a number of other factions. There have of course also been a number of other potential contacts, however with the war on the horizon we will have to wait and see how the situation develops first.”
There were no other questions.
”In a similar manner we will have to address the various threats which are currently roaming this galaxy. We currently lack the forces and connections to deal with all of them accordingly and trying to draw in one of the sides of the conflicts will likely only result in making us target of the other. Firstly there is Yog-Narr, the nature of which you are both aware of, we lack the forces and firepower to take down a foe like him currently and even if we had it, reaching him is currently near suicidal undertaking due to the battle which will soon erupt in the corridor. Due to these reasons we will be biding our time for the moment, there are other tasks more realistic to pursue and whilst we are attending those we will build up connections and work on the superweapon program to deal with him once the opportunity comes.”
Aszeven took note of this and took it and the accompanied dataflow as an indicator they will reallocate the megastructure research to the superweapon one.
”The next pending issue is Corona, the local superpower of the galaxy, in similar manner to Yog-Narr they are currently too large of a target, however, they are in decline and I do expect them to be beaten at Aedleshaven in one way or another, following that they will likely break apart into civil war. Given the base of their economy has all but vanished.”
He paused again, this time there were no questions, he could feel a certain unrest in the personality matrixes of his two Proxies, he was well aware of the amount of issues they would have to leave unattended but given their situation the Network would have to set priorities.
”Finally to my decision on whether to and on which side to participate in the incoming war.
For the time being the Network will remain neutral.”
He immediately felt the datastreams of upcoming questions, but the Proxies knew better than to interrupt him.
”There are a number of reasons to gain favour with one or the other side, one which Aszeven has already brought up is economic benefits through negotiating with CONA or rather Orillia, on the counter side their actions are less than favourable and now, before the war even started, it has already been shown that their ideals are nothing but a pretence to rally natives under their name in order to gain power.
On the other hand we have SAGA, an alliance solely created to stop them, lacking severely in cohesion due to the necessity to accept anyone who can bring ships to fight in turn leading to numerous individuals simply hiding in their midst for protection after having committed severe atrocities against native and colonial nations alike. Whilst the Prince would likely assist SAGA, if he had the choice, we do not have the choice in this case due to two major points. The first would be the Army of the Panopticon, no matter which side we join or which allegiances we make it will ultimately detract from the resources we can allocate to track them down and work against them since whichever side we would join, we would become a target of the other. The second point is, to join either of the sides we would have to reveal our identity to the public which would be detrimental to our tasks at hand and in future.”
Once more, he paused and waited, notably he felt the stream of calculations and questions slow down and neither of the two brought up any additional points. He nodded himself, they learned new perspectives quickly, as usual.
”This point aside, we will try to get a hold of psionic research materials in near future and see who can assist us in such, whilst I do not expect or intent to field psionic technology, it will be an important step to learn how to deal with our current target effectively and may also become useful in the future.
In regards to our operation regarding the refugees in the Corridor, it seems to have been decently successful, a lot of the ships have been evacuated or been able to do emergency repairs with the paramilitary forces and mercenaries we hired through proxies.”
He frowned internally. Originally, this would have been the end of his report and the meeting however, with the return of a lot of their field assets a new one had been brought to his attention only hours before the meeting.
”There is one last point we will have to address. According to the reports and also lack of reports of some of our field Androids, we have reason to assume that some of our assets have disappeared from our grid in some way or another. We currently do not know why or how, but most notably, the disappearances only partially match with activity maps of the AotP. This means that something may be out there deliberately targeting our field assets in some form or manner and given our current state of information it may as well be connected to the traverse incident. I will be investigating this matter, for the time being either of you will make regular contact with your field drones, to keep track of anomalies and disappearances.”
This time he could feel… unrest, concern. It was rare someone was, or was even capable of, targeting them directly, and only a few months after the traverse incident it was all the more concerning, whatever the cause was it seemed to be not just random disappearances, as if something deliberately targeted them, which likely meant it knew them.
Deralith sighed internally
”Report End.”
The meeting closed, there were still dataflows going back and forth, questions, mission parametres and data requests, but soon both Aszeven and Qarvaton would return to their own tasks, old and new alike.
There certainly would have been faster, more efficient ways to discuss and process all this information given their nature as AI, similar to how background info was processed even at this very moment, but it was only an additional layer to it, usually done for the protocols and they were not too much effort on the Network workload. The Prince insisted on them as they were easier to process for him than a string of AI programming, not that he wasn’t capable of it, the Prince was his creator after all.
Query: Compile all data on disappearances and lost contacts and search for patterns.
Lost Star; Unknown; Several Weeks prior
He collapsed at the corner of a building, behind a heap of trash, he still heard the voices, but they were slowly getting farther.
It didn’t matter anymore.
His internal systems were too damaged, the sub processes had already given out on his way here but he could still feel that Android body's systems would collapse any minute now.
From the shadows, something was approaching, something… humanoid.
He couldn’t even get up anymore, to run, let alone fight.
The figure was… of average size, seemed calm oddly enough it showed no signs of hostility.
“My, you seem to have been caught up in quite a lot of trouble. You seem to be in need of… assistance.”
He stared at it, as it was the only thing he could do, his visual sensors started to glitch.
If only he could’ve at least finished his mission and got what had so far back to the network.
…if only he could prevent info about the network falling into other peoples hands.
“Who are you? What do you want?!”
The figure leaned over him, he could make out a faint malicious smile.
“Me? I’m… but a wanderer. Though I wonder… what is it, that you desire?”