#shivirra

[suth2436]

Ten

The future is a source of great anxiety for me. Being left alone with my thoughts, I find myself taking a step back, trying to gain new perspective upon problems facing me; facing us. Inevitably my mind wanders to how insane my goals truly are. I was not willing to settle for anything from anyone else, so I am creating everything. I am trying to create my own species and everything that entails! My own culture, my own technologies, my own methods to live every aspect of my life. I do not want to inherit, I want to take and create.

Yet when I think about it, there's just me and three siblings - cloned from me - living in a bunker on a world that's bordering on dead. Going forward do we even have a chance? Our reach is possibly fifty kilometers around this bunker. Every day I strive to increase our reach, increase our ability to survive. Even on a lazy day, I feel a drive to struggle. Those who came before us - who have already fled this world - have decades on us. Decades of technological advancement. Right now, they could be sitting in low orbit, watching us through the storms and laughing at our progress, just waiting until we are almost ready to take to the stars ourselves.

What an infuriating thought.

I am not going to give up, though. Even if we do simply rush towards getting crushed as part of some joke. If that's the case I plan to die defiantly and screaming. But is it fair to even try? To bring my siblings into this, to create a species only to rush headlong to death. I suppose there is not much room for doubt. It is do or die, when it comes right down to it. So I continue to struggle with our problems, even the simple ones. Every solution has to be measured against an invisible foe. We not only have to solve our problems, we have to surpass those who would stop us.

And what of those who would stop us? I have to assume that those who burned this world are hostile to us. So when we take to the stars - or perhaps before - we will have a foe dedicated to our annihilation. In my idealistic vision we meet them head on and defeat them; we take their empire for our own. But this makes me think of other problems. Should our culture - our species - be singleminded in war? To already plan, in our infancy, the destruction of others; will this leave us warlike and violent, so that even in peace time we seek to wage war? Will it cause our species to splinter into the nation states of our predecessors and fight for internecine reasons?

They are questions I have no answer to. Yet. I feel that a balance must be struck, that we must simultaneously embrace violence as a means of problem solving, yet abhor it as the crudest of methods. The questions surrounding violence split into yet more. Is diplomacy possible with those who are already in the heavens? If it is, is it a path we wish to pursue? 

The answers will have to come in time. For now, I should focus again on the tasks at hand, trying to survive in a hostile world.

[suth2436]

Six

There is life on Shivirra besides us. I do not mean whatever collection of bacteria and extremophiles manage to eke out a living upon this charred planet's surface (side note: learn what kind of extremophiles live on the surface), but other sentience, other sapience. Doubtless the remnants of the war who lived somehow.

We discovered them when making use of Dust's glucose rations, going out further from our home than we've ever managed before. It is a mess of corrugated metals and dirt bricks, but it was remarkable none-the-less. Shivirrans are hardier than I have given them credit, which means I must re-evaluate quite a number of things. Void volunteered to stay the evening there observing from a nearby hill, with nothing but some spare rations, a dust cloak, and binoculars. 

Fire, Dust, and I have returned to the bunker and are getting extra rations and weapons. Old hammers and boxing tools for the most part, but it should be enough. With luck there will be more resources than just dirt and metal to take back, but there's no way of knowing until we take it.

There's not enough resources left to recycle on this planet to sustain multiple civilizations - not anymore. If us Yagoshans intend on getting off this planet and grasp at our destiny, we will need to succeed here first. I am nervous, there are only four of us, and likely thirty or so of them, based on the size of the settlement anyways, and if they have firearms things could get rapidly out of hand. I have tried to impress upon my siblings the danger they represent, but without first-hand experience I fear they will underestimate them regardless.

Still, there is no way to be sure until we return with violence on our minds. Soon the Yagoshans shed the blood of another for the first time.

[suth2436]

Five

Several breakthroughs have been made. Fire first suggested that we use microtech within its current limitations, i.e. powered by the breakdown of glucose into ATP. The microtech was able to break down the glucose into ATP for its own power, but also able to break down glucose molecules and reassemble it into gasoline, with a trace amounts of hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen ultimately being left over as waste.

This was a huge success as it was the first attempt to convert one molecule into another using microtech outside of our own bodies, proving that they could use outside power sources and still break down molecules for reassembly. Vats of glucose, however, are not exactly efficient or effective - we can only make molecules made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen for example.

Void came up with a new idea to overcome this, however. Given the controlled environments microtech should be working in, the limitations of the microtech can be more easily worked with, not requiring the elimination of the problem entirely. Void imagined a central 'hive' for microtech, which the microtech would launch from and return to periodically to charge a tiny capacitor. While still having a severely limited range, it would allow the microtech to continue working without the constant need to interrupt itself and break down glucose for ATP. It could also run on a more standard electrical current as opposed to ATP. She hypothesized that if the code was effective enough and simple enough, that the central 'hive' could reprogram microtech when they returned in order to maximize their efficiency, based on what material they were working with (a mineral slurry of some kind, for example). She is already hard at working seeing if she can produce such a code, and Fire is trying to blueprint a working 'hive'.

Dust, on the other hand, has managed to compress glucose into an edible bar with some additives. This is such a breakthrough because it allows for a high energy, high nutrition meal in a very small package, ideal for carrying on long trips. This will enable us to travel farther from our home in search of materials or other things of use without fear of starvation.

The power diverted from the cloning tanks has allowed us to use a greater amount of the bunker's machinery, including more computational power. Scientific progress is happening by the hour, and I believe it has filled us all with a sort of nervous energy. Working on our respective projects has overridden even our desire to socialize, though each development tends to end in a great deal of hugging and excitement.

It is fascinating and inspiring to see such dedication amongst my siblings. I still work with old books and computerized encyclopedias as I continue to develop a Yagoshan language, and hone a method of thought or ideology. I am sure our predecessors would balk at the idea of so closely attempting to shape the minds of future generations, though I believe their own beliefs that rejected a single ideology were mistaken. As evidenced by the war scorched planet we live on, a balance must be made between unity and diversity. Is it better to sacrifice some diversity for the sake of co-operation, or is it better to sacrifice some unity to have greater diversity? I cannot say that there is an objective answer, only the answer I believe is right - that of sacrificing diversity for unity. In the face of the universe, we need to be unified to thrive. We still need diversity, for other ideas and view points are important for the sake of progress, but civil war is something that should be avoided. I predict our future will be a violent one without the need to inflict it upon ourselves.

[suth2436]

Four

Void and Dust are my new siblings. Now I think we will need to be more active and increasingly clever to support ourselves. This bunker was designed to be self-sufficient, but not for Yagoshans. With our mechanically enhanced metabolisms, I dare not attempt to grow any more siblings until we can expand our production.

I am glad I have Fire, because I have noticed something strange with my new siblings. I am not sure if it is some sort of ingrained genetic deference to age or older generations - if it is, I shall have to try and isolate that gene and remove it. For Void and Dust both seem almost reverential of me, and I find it quite intolerable. I am the oldest, and my experience gets deferred to, but that does not mean they need defer to me. 

Fire is able to mingle with them much more candidly, however, and this makes me glad. Our family grows stronger and more close knit. The four of us are learning the coding methods needed to change the processes of the microscopic technology (microtech) in our blood. Ideally these universal assemblers will be able to fabricate some of the machines we need to expand further - though at the moment power seems to be the major problem in need of solving.

The microtech in our blood feeds off of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in the body in order to power itself, thus resulting in our extreme metabolisms. However, without ATP some other method of powering will be required, and it is not easy to get power to a small cloud of microscopic machines. They will either need a sort of photovoltaic cell, which will in turn require us to generate further power on the surface in order to power the sun lamps they'd need this far underground; or they will need a small capacitor and a central location in order to recharge that capacitor regularly.

First, however, we need to be able to change their core processes, as we have simply inherited the work of an older species. While that has served me (and my siblings) fine for now, in the long term we will need to understand exactly what it is we make and how it works, and improve upon it whenever possible.

Dust and Void are very beautiful. Their genetics seem to have self repaired, and unlike Fire and I, they do not have a trace of albinism. In fact, their eyes are green and their hair a jet black. This is something that gives me an elated feeling. Even though cloning is an amazing technology, there are flaws in it that I feel compelled to leave into its design, as it causes small mutations. While a majority of the genetic material will be identical, any diversity is good.

[suth2436]

Two

Her name is Fire. My first sibling. The second of us: sibling, confidant, and partner. In the shadows of this bunker, we spend every moment together. We have so much to plan - such a future to realize. To me, it starts with her, and it will never end.

We do not want to build upon the shoulders of giants, like other cultures and civilizations have and might continue to do so. This world is covered in the remnants of those who stood on each other's shoulders. Now all that is left is ashes and dust.

A culture is a strange thing to fabricate. So much studying has revealed to me that culture is something that is largely incidental, impossible to plan; it is a natural occurrence, like the growth of a plant. But I am a living synthetic, why cannot culture be the same? So Fire and I scour knowledge and try to construct something from it - something different and divergent. 

A language is first and foremost. Language is at the heart of culture; a way to communicate via ocular interpretation of shapes. We design it to be short. Terse. Concise. One word should speak words in another language - this means the language must be modular, or context sensitive. 

Regardless, these are all challenges that we have a great deal of time to overcome. It is our sole focus, as more siblings grow to term inside their incubation tanks. 

I am so glad to have another with me. I teach her, but she is quick to learn. I respect her and she surprises me. Our likeness conceals two very different minds. Hers is swift, and easily moved to mirth. Perhaps it is her youth, perhaps it is simply that she has not had to spend so much of her life alone. 

I love her.

[suth2436]

One

I am Milk. I have not had any other name; it was a designation - a label referring to my albino skin. It is the only name I have ever had, born a kilometer underground in a glass tank. Surrounded by scientists. I was an experiment in soldiery; poked, prodded, genetically altered. 

I was cheap and easy to replace. At least until the war that ended my creators civilization happened. Then I was their only hope, trapped in a underground bunker, sucking in filtered air, drinking recycled water. Then came the pinnacle - the apex - of their experimentation and goals. 

I almost died that night. I woke up screaming, my body being eaten from the inside out by a trillion tiny machines that were meant to enhance me, but my tormentors failed to realize just how voracious their hunger was. Intravenous injection of fat and sugars kept me alive, and after that I required quintuple the caloric intake of a typical person.

Then the training started and the - failed - indoctrination. An education that was practically injected directly into my mind, new neural pathways forming and firing until I bled from the nose and eyes, the thousands of capillaries in my brain flooding then bursting. 

I am physically superior in every way. My musculature is held together by a billion quantum assemblers, my wounds close in an instant. My body is in fast forward, burning glucose and ATP to best anyone and anything. I can dodge bullets. I can crush the armour of battle tank with my bare hands. I am a tactical genius, a master strategist, a prodigy of lateral thinking. I am the first experiment to create a super soldier gone absolutely perfect.

So I killed them. Their dessicated bodies litter the hallways of this bunker. My home. I am better than them, and this is a biological imperative. Tool use is what defines us from other non-sentient, non-sapient species. I am the tool and the body combined as one, a natural step forward in evolution. 

So stripping away thousands of years of ethical and philosophical pursuits, all I am left with is a biological imperative to reproduce and out-compete. So my children grow in glass tanks like I did, and I dedicate my mind to weaponry and warfare. I rise out of the ashes of a devastated world - its inheritor. A new species. A new language, a new philosophy, a new colour to see the universe by. 

As my children grow in number our place in this universe solidifies. As we expand to the stars our position grows stronger, harder to uproot. We are not going to be some insect at risk of destruction by any callous cosmic phenomenon. We will outlive supernovas and suns, we will harness plasma and antimatter. We will be a force of nature - we will be a law of physics. A biological and technological constant.

The only destiny is our own.