Rheinland vs. Core

[PKPower]

Patiently James listened to all of Ezraels questions, occasionally nodding at some parts, smiling ammused at other parts.

"I guess the short version of how all of the initial members of the Canaan Project got involved with the PRIME AI is that we played a part in re-awakening it. At least to some extent. We were the first humans to actually spend enough time learning about the inner workings of the artificial intelligence that it chose allow us to communicate with it. So this is what I know:"

James finished the rest of his milk and took a deep breath before continuing.

"The PRIME Artificial Intelligence is one giant processing unit that is 'stored' on various places below the surface of Gammu. It's sentience is split into millions and millions of individual AI's. While they are all tightly connected and working as sort of a hive mind, they are still individual, with their own unique tasks and - dare I say - 'personalities'. Many of those tasks can be easiely completed within Gammu and don't require traveling to other systems. That's also why so little of them ever appear around the planet."

He looked down, in the direction of the chess board, but his gaze seemed to go right through it.

"The story of the Canaan Project as it is right now is an entirely different one. The PRIME AI took an interest in us. We survived way longer than the last humans that tried researching Gammu. The longer time we spent researching it, the more we realized how amazing the PRIME AI was, as well as the repercussions should we ever publish what we found. This is why we chose to stay on Gammu to research the AI for a longer period of time. This is how we avoided getting the whole world of robotics into an uproar and getting punished for basically escaping with loads of Zoner equipment. Everybody knew how risky the expedition was to begin with, so nobody even bothered sending a rescue unit. All of us dying on Gammu was a calculated risk."

James sighed and looked off towards one of the windows.

"Our augmentations were a different story. To the PRIME AI we not only were humans willing to make sacrifices to find out more about it, but also potential test subjects. Usually the AI needed to be creative when it came to finding specimen to experiment with. Those experiments were usually limited to general human biology, instead of more complex topics. The main turning point was when one of us brough up the idea of humans being adapted in order to gain a view similar to the PRIME AI. More objective information to judge situations. A giant database filled with immeasurable ammounts of information to base decisions upon. That seemed logical to the PRIME AI and this is where the tests started."

A pained expression flashed across James' face as the memories flooded back into his mind.

"By accessing the recordings I can tell that the tests and modifications took roughly a year. During some of those tests we were fully sentient, sometimes for weeks without a break. During others we were without sentience, while months passed. After this yeah the initial crew was reduced by about a third. They were not strong enough to withstand the tests performed on them. But the cybernetic enhancements were a success. The part of the PRIME AI database we could access via our minds was laughably tiny compared to the rest, but still more than the data all of the houses of the Sirius Sector could save combined. Very topical data, but an immense ammount nevertheless. It took all of us a while to adjust to the changes - after all we still had most of our human brains. The records show that each and every one of us was deeply traumatized by the past experiences. The cybernetic enhancements still compensated for that, but we all agreed that we needed some distance from Gammu. The PRIME AI could reach us anywhere in the Omicrons anyway. We would have been too much of a hinderance on Planet Gammu anyways. This is when we made it our second goal - besides completing tasks for the PRIME Artificial Intelligence to the best of our abilities - to find a new home where we could stay in peace; our promised land so to speak. Hence the name Canaan Project. That was 80 years ago."

After finishing his story James looked back up at Ezrael with a weak smile.

"Knight E2"

---