Hear me out. TKLUTS but in space šššø
Oh I made up a TKLUTS Space AU ages ago! Let's see how much I can remember...
Aronnax was a robotics engineer working aboard a spacecraft headed to *Insert Location Here*
Conseil was the interstellar biologist of the group
I never figured out a profession for Ned in this, or if I did I cannot remember. RIP Ned
They're on their journey when they keep sighting a craft of unknown origin which will not respond to their hail or reveal its reasons for being in the region of space.
They scan for signs of life but find none. Assuming it's a ghost ship drifting due to some catastrophe, they attempt to catch and tow it to the nearest port, but it suddenly responds as if it's being manned and breaks away, opening fire on the other ship.
Struggle ensues, Aronnax & Co. end up possibly evacuating in one of the ship's escape pods but getting knocked off their path and drifting? Either way they end up getting rescued by the mystery ship
Which, as it turns out, is indeed unmanned. No one is aboard but robots who take their orders from the ship's computer. Even more mysteriously, the ship does have quarters and a mess hall and other such things set up as though it was intended to take on a human crew and passengers, but there is no one to be found.
After a while they are greeted and escorted by the ship's captain, Nemo. He is also nothing more than an android, the host AI that controls the ship and its other robots, but he is so lifelike and responsive unlike the more robotic crew members that Aronnax wishes to meet his designer.
He explains that he is unable to let them go because the ship (which is still called the Nautilus) must maintain its course, but that he is programmed to keep them all in the best possible comfort for the duration of their journey.
Any questions Aronnax & Friends ask are answered politely but vaguely. Ned wants very much to know what the hell the purpose of this ship is.
Aronnax says he'll work on figuring out what's going on with Nemo, because he's worked with similar AIs in the past and may be able to bypass any security protocols that are keeping him from passing on information.
In the meantime they go on a few Space Adventures and have a good time but realize all the while that they are nowhere near Inhabited Space.
Aronnax is fascinated by Nemo, too. He's never met such a lifelike AI. One could almost believe he's human.
...In fact, Aronnax starts to get disturbed by the idea that he IS human, or being controlled by one. But that's impossible. It's just that an AI would not weep over the demise of one of the units of its hivemind, or appear to have an honest fondness for music - not just for the pleasure of its passengers, but for its own.
Ned thinks Aronnax is starting to lose it.
But then they start finding odd things like old photographs belonging to the former passengers, and realizing that some of the people in them look eerily like the robots who man the crew. Why?
Nemo, too, over time becomes moodier, and less stable. Glitching out, or...?
Eventually they stumble across their worst suspicions - the fact of Nemo's reality, and the crew's. They were meant to be artificial copies of formerly living men - AIs that they could wake up in and live once more with all their memories, goals, and personalities intact. Dakkar was the mastermind behind this and managed to create a version of himself as well as his friends who were acting as rebels on a distant colonized planet. But he was injured before he finished the project and had to launch it, incomplete.
Because of that, Nemo initially was nothing more than a base AI with no memories, and the crew were just attached to him.
But over time Nemo's former self started coming through, and he began to lose control of the crew as they woke up as well.
Eventually, Dakkar is fully awake and aware of his true plan for the Nautilus - to enact vengeance on the people who did such harm to his planet.
Aronnax tries to persuade him not to, thinking he will have a better chance of reasoning with a man, even one in an artificial body, than he would with an android. But Dakkar will not listen and destroys a fully manned ship in cold blood.
At this point Ned and Conseil are like "yo let's bail"
So they eventually do their escape plan thing and end up on a distant supply base waiting to be picked up and wondering whatever happened to the Nautilus, and if it will always wander the skies carrying out the dreams of a dead man.
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