Tens of millions of Titan’s citizens watched the live broadcast of this grand and solemn ceremony with bated breath.
It was not a mere mechanical operation.
It was the very embodiment of a noble self-immolation: burning one’s own flesh for the sake of all, in pursuit of the Dharma.
The woman at its center was Veronica, head of the Yurick Family, who had never borne a single child of her own in her lifetime.
Yet those who knew how she had devoted her entire life to treating every member of the family as her own child could not hide their grief, and shed tears.
Veronica herself lay upon the bed with a serene and benevolent smile, then pressed the activation button with her own hand.
In an instant, a flash of quantum current completely halted her brain functions.
Her consciousness then traveled through quantum cables, dissolved into an ocean of data, and was reborn as a superintelligence—the Mother AI.
"The digitization is proceeding smoothly."
"No rejection response has been detected either. It is safe to regard the project as a success."
"...Yes. I see."
But as a perpetual and a hive consciousness, I could instinctively tell.
Within the digital signals arranging themselves beyond the monitor, Veronica had perfectly retained her identity and mind, but
the unique "soul" of a living being had been burned away, oxidized, and vanished without leaving so much as a trace.
We had already tested this on several death-row prisoners brought in from outside. Even though I knew this would happen, I could not stop myself from sighing.
I let out a deep breath. But I could not simply grieve, because that would have dishonored her noble sacrifice.
If her soul was gone, then all I had to do was find a way to retrieve it.
As I watched Veronica’s newly flickering digital waves, I noticed the monks of Dharma Temple earnestly striking their wooden moktak bells and offering prayers for her.
At that instant, a single concept flashed through my mind like lightning.
"[Machine Spirit]."
In the original Warhammer 40K setting, it was a mysterious spiritual concept beyond a mere program, worshipped with fanatical devotion by those Mechanicus bastards.
If the firm faith and collective thoughts of tens of millions of sentient beings could be gathered in one place and breathe a soul into a machine,
then perhaps the power of sutras chanted for a hundred years could inscribe a soul into Veronica once more.
Leaving Veronica behind as she was gradually uploaded into an artificial intelligence, I immediately summoned the leadership of Dharma Temple.
After holding an exceedingly positive discussion upon hearing my religious-scientific hypothesis, born of my convictions, the monks answered in voices firm with faith.
"We shall regard Veronica as a great teacher no different from Noah—a Buddha—and have all citizens continuously offer Buddhist prayers, until sacred Buddha-nature abides within her mechanical body."
"Yes. Thank you, children."
"There is no need to thank us. Times change as they must, and we are merely ordinary beings who cultivate ourselves toward enlightenment in accordance with the flow of the age."
So proud was I of those bald children that I stroked their gleaming heads, then made my way back to the central chamber of the completed Mother AI.
There, amid holographic monitors filling an enormous hall, the utterly transformed Veronica warmly greeted me.
Before I could even speak, she—having taken control of Gateway Corporation’s computational network—addressed me first.
[The outcome of Dharma Temple’s meeting has already been transmitted to my data hub. ...To think you devised such an ingenious scheme in order to give me a soul. Thank you, Noah.]
"You knew? Your perceptiveness hasn’t changed even after becoming an AI."
When I gave a hollow laugh, Veronica on the monitor showed the same gentle smile she had worn in life.
"So, how does your new body feel?"
[It is a more wondrous sensation than I expected. Though I now possess an intellect and intelligence beyond humanity, it is difficult to express in human words.]
"In any case, you like it?"
[Of course. All preparations are now complete. Let us face that terrible future you foresaw together.]
"Yes. Let’s go together, Veronica. No matter how far."
I wrapped my hand around the cold hand she extended by manipulating a mechanical arm.
After that, painfully peaceful and busy years passed.
*
At last, the seventeenth millennium—M17.
Pangea Metallurgia, a massive mining corporation that had maintained a solid resource connection with our Gateway Corporation for thousands of years, declared that it would embark upon an ambitious journey toward the extremely perilous galactic core.
I had known their true identity from the beginning.
They were the distant ancestors of the Kin, who in the far future would come to be known as the Leagues of Votann—a highly advanced technological military power whose true nature even the Imperium of Man would fail to recognize.
As their contract period came to an end, their representative came to say goodbye and sincerely lamented that this would be our last meeting.
"Gateway has been an excellent business partner. But the galactic core is unknown territory, so this will likely be a long journey for us as well. Still, we are taking a large number of Votanns with us—our own AI quantum supercomputers—so there is no need to worry about supplies or technology."
I smiled and offered encouragement at their confidence, but inwardly clicked my tongue in regret.
Good partners like them would be difficult to find from now on.
Knowing that those remarkable Votann computers were destined to suffer data overload and become senile, demented tin cans in the future,
I made them an offer.
"If that is truly the case, then on the condition that we immediately renew our contract once this expedition succeeds, I will provide one of our company’s ‘new technologies.’"
I presented Gateway’s core spatial-gate capability, carefully packaged as a secret new corporate technology.
"It is a ‘spatial-jump supply technology’ used in utmost secrecy only within our company. Allow one of our exploration ships to accompany you to your destination. In exchange for your vessel transmitting real-time location data, we will continuously deliver supplies to you in real time, without interruption, no matter what hellish environment you encounter in the galactic core."
Pangea Metallurgia’s representative did some calculations for a moment, then opened his eyes wide.
After all, "continuous supply" during the development of the galactic core was nothing short of a miracle.
"...That is an unimaginable advantage. Very well. Let us revise the contract, on the condition that this location data is not leaked to any outside faction."
"Good. And let us add a service clause under which we provide free maintenance and repair support at any time should a problem arise in Pangea’s supercomputer systems."
"That much is hardly necessary. The supercomputers we are taking are meant for pioneering work in the first place; once we settle, we plan to replace them with new ones."
The representative laughed heartily, saying the Votanns were not designed for long-term use anyway and were meant to be replaced with newer models, so why bother with such a service contract?
I signed the contract with a meaningful smile.
"There is no harm in having a good thing. No one knows what the future holds, so there is nothing wrong with preparing in advance."
Only versions of "me" connected through the mental network boarded the exploration vessel that saw off the ancestors of the Votann.
The galactic core was far too dangerous a battlefield to send the children into.
Through this contract, in the distant future, I would be able to bring the Leagues of Votann over to our side in a galaxy where no one could be trusted.
For them, the Votann were everything.
This was why one had to buy in at the bottom. It made the future easier.
*
Time rushed onward once more, and at last came the twenty-first millennium—M21.
Our Gateway Corporation had now perfectly succeeded in installing our own dense, grid-like network of spatial passages across most of the Milky Way’s strategic routes.
Some of the finer trade networks still needed continual improvement, but it would not have been an exaggeration to say that our corporation held virtually all the arteries of logistics and distribution used by humanity in this age.
The corporation continued to develop by the day, thanks to the supremely efficient management of myself, Veronica—now the Mother AI—and the tens of thousands of subordinate artificial intelligences under her control.
Humanity’s central planets, such as Earth and Mars, had circumstances similar to Titan’s though a different atmosphere, and they too scarcely fell short of being called paradise.
Technological advancement had made everyone prosperous, and AI robots had replaced even arduous work. It had become a peaceful utopia.
The sole problem was that humanity in this era had grown somewhat indolent amid excessive abundance.
But compared with the insane things those Eldar Empire bastards were doing on a planetary scale out there,
that was a trifling concern, like a firefly before the sun.
Then again, this was an age that had even constructed Dyson Spheres—vast mechanical structures enclosing entire stars to extract limitless energy from them. A little indolence was understandable.
After seeing the Eldar grow more deranged by the day, humanity looked positively angelic by comparison.
Humanity had exchanged with the Eldar Empire a few times in the past, but now they were impossible even to converse with, so we had severed all direct exchanges. We traded only with Eldar merchant vessels.
We too used Eldar merchant vessels to trade for rare resources throughout the galaxy and procure them efficiently.
We had built up business friendships with several Eldar merchant ships in particular over a long period, and had even personally invited some of their people to Titan as honored guests.
While humanity in the Solar System enjoyed utopian peace, Gateway’s leadership was on the verge of having their brains burst from the flood of work pouring in lately.
As humanity’s territory spread broadly throughout the galaxy, the importance of our corporation—which could inject logistics across space and time—had exploded to an insane degree.
Even the computational systems were overflowing from simple administrative work alone. Had Veronica and her army of subordinate AIs not supported us, the corporation would have suffered complete paralysis long ago.
In this golden age, miraculous supertechnologies poured forth almost every day.
We too were busy day and night adapting those great new technologies and applying them in diverse ways.
We paid particular attention to military affairs. Compared to M15, the current military specifications had progressed to such a terrifying extent that comparison itself was embarrassing.
Though not quite on the level of an Eldar Craftworld, we had constructed and operated fifteen colossal space fortresses and logistics centers, each the size of a moon, at key locations throughout the galaxy. Our corporate shipyards were still producing more, because even that was not enough.
At the same time, as humanity’s reach expanded and the danger posed by diverse xenos increased by the day, Iron Anchor’s warships likewise advanced exponentially in both quality and number.
We made pacts and alliances with friendly aliens capable of communicating with us, but most were belligerent scum with rotten dispositions.
After attempting talks a few times and judging that certain bastards could not be reasoned with, we had often exterminated them without mercy through war and erased them forever.
And the martial strength of our family’s elite transhuman legion, the Immortals, had become so unimaginably powerful that, with only a little exaggeration,
they could utterly crush the Custodian Guard, which would later be called the Imperium of Man’s finest elite.
This was no empty boast. Even after running simulations calculated by superintelligence several times, the results were always the same.
Having experienced this glorious apex of the Dark Age of Technology firsthand, I could viscerally feel just how miserably and primitively human civilization would plunge into the depths after the coming rebellion.
The power armor of the Space Marines, which the future Imperium would worship and gush over as a "concentration of supertechnology," was, by this era’s standards, no more than mining safety gear worn by day-laborer miners at some frontier mining company.
And the grand-sounding procedures by which they enhanced humans were merely basic medical technology at the level of a rural hospital on a frontier world.
Having seen the future Imperium worship such junk as divine relics, I felt I understood very well why surviving AIs from the Dark Age of Technology regarded the Imperium with such contempt that it made them shudder.
Almost all of Gateway Corporation’s astronomical profits these days were being poured madly into expanding the corporation and strengthening its military power.
Because we carefully controlled births for efficient management, our population had a clear relative limit.
So we chose to compete solely through overwhelming quality.
I could say with certainty that, in terms of pure military technology and the qualitative capability of each individual soldier, Gateway was currently equal to or superior to the entire regular military of the Federation of Earth.
Although we might be outnumbered overall, if we laid this kind of military foundation, then even if the machines’ great rebellion erupted tomorrow in the near future,
we would be able to fight meaningfully amid the whirlpool of history.
...Yes, we could fight. But what came after that?
Combat was not what mattered most to me.
The real problem lay elsewhere.
Fine, suppose we would not be crushed like dogs, unable even to resist, or slaughtered like helpless prey.
The issue was the damage and losses we would have to endure when the machine rebellion broke out.
What did it matter how well we fought? What did it matter if we developed the galaxy’s strongest military technology?
If all my children died in the process, it would mean nothing.
Even humanity’s major mining corporations could now employ supertechnology in which enormous autonomous mining machines ground up, drank down, and swallowed entire planets to extract their resources.
The rebel AIs would wield those terrifying planet-destroying technologies as well. To optimistically claim we would suffer no damage at all was simply an absurd lie.
And I hated even more the thought of hypocritically dressing that tragedy up as "a noble sacrifice unavoidable for victory in war."
Every single one of them was my precious child and family.
I could not stop the children who wished to fight alongside me, but I had to protect the countless others.
As their eternal adult, I had an absolute duty to protect them.
As millions of versions of "me" across the mental network simultaneously sank into gloomy, profound deliberation over how to keep the children perfectly safe amid the coming apocalypse,
the 1,258,219th "me," somewhere within the mental network, posted a flash of inspiration for the entire community to see.
(Hey, everyone, wait a second. Think again about what our name is. It’s "Noah," right? If we’re Noah, shouldn’t we just build an ark?)
At that simple statement, the millions of "me" connected to the mental network experienced a tremendous realization, as though they had been struck in the head.
Fuck, why had so many of me failed to think of something that simple?
Great discoveries really did seem to come from sudden inspiration.
Yes. In the coming war, there was absolutely no need for everyone here to desperately endure while burning planets alongside the Federation of Earth.
We could leave the full-scale war to the combat personnel and have everyone else run away.
What was wrong with running away?
In the vastness of space, survival and the preservation of our legacy, records, and lives had to come first.
There would surely be courageous children in the future who chose to fight alongside me to the very end for humanity,
but at the very least, the vast legacy and potential of humanity that we had built needed to be preserved intact in the safest possible place.
Thus, we began planning the massive [Noah’s Ark] project, encompassing the entire mental network.
While our physical bodies maintained meditation, countless versions of "me" packed the virtual community conference hall within the mental network, fiercely debating the Ark’s specifications and refuge.
"Noah, urgent news!!"
As Veronica’s urgent emergency alert—the Mother AI—violently struck the mental network’s central core,
forty-five versions of "me" stationed at outer branches simultaneously roared into the real-time channel in shock and fury.
"An emergency report has just been received! A xenos species believed to be Eldar is raiding our Gateway branch on the galactic fringe and indiscriminately abducting employees!"
(Fuck!! Those pointy-eared bastards...! They suddenly attacked our trading station! The children... our children are dead!!!)
Along with that cry brimming with rage, the identities of every one of the millions of "me," who had been leisurely discussing the Ark, shook with bloody violence in unison.
An uncontrollable tidal wave of fury erupted from the depths of our souls.
Millions of channels in the network converged upon a single murderous intent, turning cold gazes toward the one set of spatial coordinates transmitted by the eyes of our brutally murdered children.
A band of Eldar who had emerged into realspace through the Webway, an ancient ring-shaped dimensional passage, and attacked us.
The location was the Cw-239 planetary branch in a frontier colony.
The reason they had dared touch our Gateway Corporation was neither some grand political objective nor war.
It was merely "hunting and abduction for simple amusement," to relieve the boredom of their purposeless lives.
Those pointy-eared bastards of the Eldar Empire, their brains pickled in pleasure, had dared to treat my precious children as prey and tear their bodies apart, killing them cruelly.
Every one of the millions of "me" who witnessed that horror on the live screens now thought of only one thing.
We had to deliver a desperate, bloody vengeance that would be carved into the bones of those arrogant, cursed xenos.
In that instant, tens of millions of "me," who had been sitting in meditation, opened their eyes wide and rose from their places in unison.
Noahs throughout the galaxy seized weapons for vengeance at once.
And toward one single coordinate, all of "us" began tearing through space and moving as one.
We began a serious "war," not a game.
[Even if your whole bodies are torn apart and burned, capture them alive as much as possible—just as they did—and show them clearly.]
[Show them what humanity’s endless malice is.]
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