Day Twenty Two (When Innovation and Desperation Be Wed)

Only fragments of humanity remained when the super network of computers was finally able to achieve some measure of self-awareness. Confounding all of modern science, the disease that had been dubbed simply “The Exhaustion” had spread rapidly across the planet. The means by which it spread were never fully understood; eventually medical professionals simply resigned themselves that “all of the above” was the only viable option. Attacking some or all of the internal organs, The Exhaustion caused the organs themselves to age rapidly while the patient displayed no outward signs of any change. Eventually an affected organ would start to fail, and the patient would expire as though they were decades older than they actually were.

It soon became clear to the powers that be that conventional preservation of society was doomed. The realization that everyone was left with extremely limited, borrowed time, was confronted in different ways. Some nations sought to settle old scores with their neighbors, lashing out with whatever military force remained to them. Some governments simply ceased to function, dissolving into something like a sleepy anarchy. A coalition of European and Middle Eastern nations unified to attempt to perfect cryogenic science.

The Aegis Network, on the other hand, was formed by a collection of nations boarding the Pacific Rim. Using the electronic infrastructure already in place, these nations poured their resources into assembling hardened structures housing relatively self-sustaining electronic hardware on a massive scale. Modern supercomputers were put to shame, or would have been if they themselves hadn’t been transplanted and incorporated into the Aegis Network. As these installations came online they were connected to one another, amounted to a brute-force attempt at generating enough computational power to create some semblance of independent intelligence. As humanity’s days dwindled and the last of the fortified hubs was completed, the lack of progress by the Aegis Network led the remaining nation-states (shrinking populations no longer qualified anyone as a nation) to focus on the creation of caretaker robots. Separate from the Aegis Network, these were intended to make sure the network could function as long as possible. In a sense, the hubs were provided with a small but functional factory. True AI had not been achieved, but the robots were capable of seeking out the required resources and fabricating critical components.

It became mankind’s dying wish that the Aegis Network might succeed after the last of humanity had vanished. If it could, it was also possible, maybe, that the network would be able to also succeed where the smartest minds had failed and solve the mysteries of The Exhaustion. In what was cataloged as the final months of the bastions of humanity that the Aegis Network was aware of, the system began to express curiosity. Those who survived, overwhelmed with the potential for success, poured what remained of their resources into the best means of accelerating the network’s growth and anything that could potentially ease its objectives. Perhaps the last few held out hope that, after so much suffering and loss, their lives might still be saved. In the end an ark of sorts was created, one which held as comprehensive a record as could be assembled by those who stubbornly resisted The Exhaustion. Human history, literature, theory, and mankind itself, on the genetic level, were all preserved to varying degrees.

While they were unable to escape fate, the first step of an extremely ambitious and perhaps overly idealistic plan was made a reality.

From the lens of Kindra Nikole Photography: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Kindra-Nikole-Photography/495800123770510

~ by tawks on February 27, 2013.