Mindforce Training

The ship was busy all last night working with the new data it had gathered in our encounter. I tried my best to sleep however I was haunted with the images of the creature we had created. I ended up watching some of the data that the ship analyzed and dozed off a couple times in the chair while I did so. Finally I felt rested enough to function, but I knew I would be nervous all day. The psychic energies coming from the creature had been strong, amazingly strong. Sensors not built to detect those energies had detected them, which had given the ship an idea on how to finally be able to sense the mindforce energy without us having to continue in our experiments. I was relieved to have another possible solution, I really didn't want to try to manipulate life again to suit our needs and I forbade the ship from doing anything more along those lines as well, for now fragments were off limits. As for me, I had to work on developing my raw mindforce abilities, I could no longer rely on the technology to sense what I needed to and I had realized at some point in my sleeplessness that the creature had been able to access so much of my mind because of the implant, it would have to go. This would reduce my control over the ship, I would have to communicate more and be dependant on the entity. However, I would not need the PDA back either, we modified the ship so that wherever I was a console could be projected. It was good that we had developed the technology despite not needing it at the time. Once we double checked that all the interfaces I would need were created I had the implant removed and felt my absolute control slip away as well as my enhanced abilities.

Training was difficult, I had been so used to the technology in my head helping me harness and control my natural abilities that I had no idea how to really use them without it. The first thing I had to do was go back to sweating, it served no purpose for me to have vibrant sweat as the technology would not be useful to me, however I needed something basic to start with to start training my mind. All the sweat that I gathered the ship stored for me, I didn't have any technology on me anymore for doing it myself but I was grateful to be free of the burden for now. As my focus improved and I was able to concentrate better without the aid of technology I started to sense the creatures in the habitat more. It seemed as if all of them put forth a small amount of mindforce energy, each one felt different and none of them were malicious like the energy I had encountered from that thing we had to run from. I didn't even know what to call it, it was humanoid and if it hadn't been for the green hue in its skin I could have mistaken it for a human being. I decided it was best right now not to dwell on it, my focus needed to be in improving my own abilities for now.

As the day drew to a close I felt tired, I had been training most of the day and had some progress. I could better sense the creatures around me though this would still need some work as they had to be pretty close. I also could train without sweating now as I had something else to focus on. The ship was still conducting its research, there was a lot of data to go through from the brief encounter, however it said it should have some results when I woke up. It prepared a meal for me, one that it assured me should help me sleep. It wasn't wrong, the meal was delicious and as I jotted down my notes for the day I felt sleep coming quickly.

The Way of the Mad Scientist

Well, all the simulations came up as failures with the fragments. We even tried different mixes of them to see if we could get it to balance, however the plants and the bacteria would end up killing one another. Being that it was all just a simulation we were only going on previous habits that we encountered in our observations, so I finally made up my mind, we'd have to actually try this with real plants and bacteria. We created mini domes within the room that was designated for this study. I also had the ship construct an observation room so we could further isolate these tests, I didn't want any of evolving life to corrupt our current habitat. Constructing the life didn't take long, they were very simple organisms and we were, after all, only modifying their genome, it wasn't like we had to create them from scratch. Once we had each mini-dome balanced out and functioning with living organisms we began introducing fragments into each one, of course leaving one untouched to base our results on. The plants and bacteria didn't go instantly berserk, the simulations had been accelerated in order to try to find our answers in a timely manner, this time we'd have to wait and see.

After a few hours we started to notice differences in the various little domes. The atmosphere changed within a few and the plants would change color. The bacteria were difficult to observe due to their size and our need to not allow them to escape, however it looked like one set of them had started producing a black light instead of white and the plants glowed eerily. The most interesting change was that one of them, the one we had put the fragments in we were planning to test with, seemed to be emitting a mindforce energy and a few of the other domes seemed to be responding to it. As the ship could not detect these energies I had to have a chair put in the room and allow the ship to analyze it from what my mind could detect of it. As I focused more on the energy so that the ship could get good readings I suddenly noticed that there were more energies coming from the ones that were responding. It seemed as if they were communicating with each other. I opened my eyes and looked again at the domes, they were changing again, the ones that were communicating, they seemed to be altering themselves much faster as the energies continued to flow between them. The light from the domes emitting the energy started to fluctuate, and as their light did so too did the light in the other domes until they all seemed to be performing their own lightshow. That's when I noticed that the first dome had started to crack, whatever was growing inside of it had stopped producing light and I started to notice that the energy was intensifying. With horror I realized that a balance had been reached, and it had happened because of them all communicating with one another. The thing in the first dome was the result of the bacteria and the plants evolving into something new, and it was trying to get free.

I was compelled by curiosity to not have the thing destroyed in the vaccuum of space or cast into the nearby star, I had to see what was forming from this environment we had constructed. The dome cracked more and through the crack started to ooze a dark green substance. As it continued flowing through the tiny seam it had created it began taking shape, evolving before my eyes, it took on a more solid consistency, appendages seemed to be forming. The color shifted from deep green to a more fleshy appearance, though it still had a green hue to it. Watching this thing form brought to mind one of the theories of how life began, that everything crawled out of some sort of primordial ooze and began its existence. It was wonderous to watch but horrible at the same time, this thing was monsterous in appearance, at least as it currently looked. The energies intensified as it took shape, even the ship was able to start sensing them even without the technology we were trying to develop. I felt my mind fighting against it, the energies seemed to be attacking me but yet I could not tell the ship to destroy it, I had to see what it ended up being. Slowly the green fleshly thing started to form eyes, it surveyed its surroundings as it continued to take shape. More and more it oozed out and took its form, more and more I realized the form was becoming human. It must be using my mind and memories to create a template for its body. It must have heard the thought, because as I realized it the creature looked at me and the mouth it was in the middle of forming grinned at me. At that moment I commanded the ship to send it into space, to cast it into the nearby star, to make sure it didn't survive. But it was already too late, the creature had power exceeding what a simple translocation gun could do to it. The ship fired many times but the creature only smiled more at our feeble attempts. It was a malicious entity, of that I could tell. It continued its attack against my mind, however I could feel my abilities increasing against it. My ability to jam mindforce was increasing, the onslaught against me was making me stronger. The creature realized this and I felt the assault slowing. At this point its physical form had finished and it was coming towards the glass, smashing all the other domes along the way and seeming to absorb the contents. The ship opened the room to space, trying to suck the entity out, but it held fast to the ship and with the balanced ecosystem we had developed in the first place it had no need of the atmosphere, it was self sustaining. After the vaccuum had stopped the creature got back to its feet and came to the glass, it started pounding on it and its strength was evident. The glass began cracking and the ship informed me that I needed to move to a safer area. I quickly ran back up the side of the ship and into my normal chambers, I didn't know what to do. The ship then informed me it had detached the nearly destroyed room and the creature was still in it, however it was attempting to get back on the ship. The ship then performed a gravity jump and we were gone.

I didn't know what to do, we had created something unintended from our research. The fragments held more mysteries to them than we could comprehend. We could do nothing against this creature, however I feared it would find us. It seemed to want to destroy us, or at least to destroy me. I recalled the story of Frankenstein, I had spent some time reading old stories and had laughed at the notion of a mad scientist creating a creature such as that. I had not realized that it could be possible to create something so horrific, something that would haunt your dreams. I knew that I would have to face this demon again eventually, I played a big part in its creation and I would need to ensure it didn't survive.

Virtual Construction

It appears some of the research that was conducted on the station before the aliens had seemingly abandoned it had involved learning more about genetics, specifically watching how things evolved and how the little changes in the sequence caused the changes in the creatures. Unfortunately they didn't find Calypso, I'm sure they would have learned a lot more from that planet than the one they had been observing. The knowledge they did have would definitely help us in our task and the ship would be able to simulate the anticipated results based on its continued observations and data collection. Meaning we wouldn't have to create a ton of failed mutant experiments to get the results we were looking for. The easiest life to work from would be the plants, their ability to regenerate would mean that a single plant would be able to continuously create what we would need. In preparation for the process we gathered a few more resources from the new star system we were in and constructed a second habitat for our genetically constructed plant life. This habitat was much smaller than the first and was constructed on the underside of the ship, we had the gravity bend around the ship and be reversed in that room so that you could walk around the ship and into this room and not down a flight of stairs or need to transport, teleport or take an elevator. We then got to work simulating the changes that would occur in a few plants as we modified their virtual genome.

Shaping the plants was amazingly easy. It didn't take much effort at all to figure out where and what to modify in order to get the plant to either grow into the shape we wanted or to bear fruit in the shape we were needing it to be in. The next step would be in getting the plant to have circuitry within it, something that the ship could interact with or that would function much like the technology I currently had implanted in my head. The first solution to come to mind would be a nervous system in the plants, however this could give the technology the ability to learn to do things itself as the system developed and matured, this would not be an acceptable outcome with technology that was interacting with my brain. The second would be to have the plant grow on top of a technology shell, meaning we would have the wires and pieces run and the plant would actually grow around it. This seemed quite a bit more plausible for us to implement as it would be difficult to get DNA to construct conductive fibers where we needed them to go. The next problem we would have to face is how to get the plant to only grow where we wanted it to and how to care for it, a living organism would need nutrients.

The solution to control and nourish the plants actually would be interesting. The plan was, instead of creating a circuit for the plant to grow on, to create a mini biodome for it to live in with some bacteria specially engineered to provide light and recycle nutrients for the plants. The bacteria would also feed off of the plants and so the ecosystem would be self-maintained if done right. The virtual environment was created and balanced, the plants and the bacteria modified until they sustained eachother perfectly. We then introduced the fragments we desired into the equation. The results were a disaster. The plants and bacteria mutated far too quickly and the system collapsed. The evolution wasn't just the fragments, it was the creatures and plants trying to survive together with the new found abilities. We would have to continue working on this problem until we could either find a way to keep them from reacting so much with the fragments or until they actually evolved into a working order together.

Working with Fragments

The results are fascinating. As we try out different energy levels, frequencies and even types the fragments respond differently. A single fragment has nearly limitless possibilities as you make minor adjustments. As intestesting as these experiments are, we really are looking for one particular type of response. The kind that gives technology the ability to enhance mindforce. So far from what we have gathered from the chips we were able to study is that the chips mearly create a conduit for a particular type of mindforce energy and then enhance it with the mind essence, basically just pouring the raw energy into the mind energy and they combine without any technology telling it to do so. Without the mind essence the technology would only be an energy filter, helping us control which power we are using, which for most of us wouldn't be very strong. The technology beyond that has no way of interacting with the energies involved in mindforce. The fragments, however, react to every type of energy. This is why, I believe, some of the creatures on Calypso have mindforce powers, and also why the creature in the habitat developed them as well. It would be interesting to see what would happen if the right fragments were used with a creature that already had the abilities naturally, however in order to find out we'd have to isolate which fragments were creating this ability within the creatures.

As the research continued we learned much about the fragments. We had some potential experiments that might give us the results we were looking for, however I wanted to make sure we were in a better known environment when we tested as we weren't sure what some of the results would be. I knew it would be just another day or so when we finally arrive at our destination. A star system should allow us all the resources and safety we need to finish these tests, at least the ones that involved the ship. As for the tests that involved my implant, we could begin those whenever because of the controlled environment within the ship. We had some prototype changes we could try, however I was reluctant to implement them yet as the technology was still very fragile. We had to find a way to use the fragments without them shattering, I imagined it would be very painful to have broken pieces of technology in my brain, plus, we had no idea what would happen if I died in this particular layer of space. The revive terminal was completed, but we had no need of using it yet and I didn't feel like volunteering for it right now, especially when the results were so uncertain.

Living tissue. That was what made these fragments stable. This is why they interact so well with living things because it is within them that they find stability. With stability they are able to work indefinitely and that's why things can evolve so quickly when these are introduced into their systems. This might also account for why the robots went crazy if these were indeed the things that affected them. Without stability they would be in constant flux, a broken fragment wouldn't have a negative effect, but the fluctuation of energies would have caused conflicts within their circuitry. This meant that unless we drastically altered the ship it wouldn't be able to use these fragments either in any stable manner. This meant we were going to have to begin engineering something biomechanical, it would most likely have to be growth with the technology in it. I wasn't sure how we would do it, but this would be the process we needed to go through in order to produce the desired results. The ship informed me that there was some information the aliens had that could assist in this, I was going to need another knowledge infusion. Having no need to wait I finished up what we had, made some notes and sat down in the chair. By the time the infusion finished we would have arrived at our destination.

The Creature

Catching one of these little critters posed a huge problem for us. Even with a bunch of probes flying around the habitat they were hard to spot and the moment they were noticed they ran off and hid somewhere else. We couldn't even get a good view of what they looked like because of their habit of hiding. They were timid, but curious little creatures. They wanted to figure out what we were doing but they didn't want us to know they were there. We finally settled on a plan that would use their own curiosity against them. I went back to my haven and lied down, then we simple needed to wait for one to get close enough. The guns were well hidden and aimed at a variety of spots that they could hide in. Finally, a slight rustle was heard and one of the guns fired. The creature was caught and it was in an observation room where we had translocated it to.

Getting a good view of this thing was impossible, not only did it not register on our life scanners but it also had the ability to change its coloring, it was so good at this that if it shut its eyes you had no idea it was there. We modified the room to shift colors and patterns, this only gave us a vague idea of where it was at any point because as fast as the ship would shift the room's look the creature would shift its coloring to match. Finally, we realized it would be too difficult to study this creature under these conditions, it moved around too much and its eyes were never kept in a direction that would reflect the light. We switched to thermal scans of the room and had a hard time viewing the creature this way as well, it hardly put off any heat. Finally I decided I would need to go in there and try to make contact with it, I took some food and had the ship transport me into the room, hopefully not landing on it.

It took probably a good two hours of sitting in the room to make any progress. I talked quietly to the creature and heard it moving about the room. I had placed a few pieces of fruit on the ground, just a couple feet from where I sat. I heard the creature sniffing at the food and then heard it trying again to climb up the walls, to find some escape from the room. Eventually the food lifted and vanished before my eyes, it had grabbed it and hid it under its body so that the food would not be visible. I heard it eating a bit and still moving around, I assumed it was inspecting me, trying to figure out if I intended harm to it. I placed some more fruit next to me and closed my eyes, listening to its movements. It was then that I began to see it, with my eyes closed and listening to it I began seeing it in my mind. It, like all the other creatures had that cute quality to it. From what I could see it had a thick fur to it, which would probably account for the inability to sense it properly with thermal scans. Its eyes were not nearly as large as those of most of the other creatures, however they had an innocent look to them. At this point the creature took the food I had near me and retreated, the image from my mind fading. It was a proximity image, a kind of psychic projection of itself. With this information I knew that the next step would be in finding a way to give the ship the ability to have a type of mindforce power similar to my own, I would also need to upgrade the implant in my head to allow me to see them better and from farther away. At that we opened a passage for the creature to return to the habitat. It looked like my next step was going to have to be to work with the fragments, I believe they hold the key to enhancing this technology and allowing the ship to interface with it as well.

Evolution

The ship informed me that it had taken advantage of the proximity to Calypso to deploy a probe to a remote location where there were no human or robot presences and gathered samples from the flora and fauna on the planet in order to continue its study of these fragments that we were able to find. It had extracted several more types of fragments and was already in the process of improving the habitat based on what it discovered. At this I decided it would be a good time to find out what the ship had been up to while I had been working on the new drive and upgrading the ships defenses.

The fragments had a drastic impact on the species. Many of them had become much larger, although they were still sickeningly cute. A few of them were showing signs of advanced intelligence and the plants had modified themselves a bit more to suit their new life in the ship. In essence, everything was making changes at a rapid rate to accomodate the new place it was living. The ship seemed pleased with the progress that the fragments had brought about. I informed the ship to not continue this type of study too much or else we might be overrun with more advanced life than we were ready to deal with. It informed me that it had already figured this study would be hazardous if continued too far and assured me that it had learned what it needed to already and would just keep the information in the database should we need it. This being done, I silently praised the ship for making the changes, it would be nice having creatures and life that was better tailored to surviving in the ship instead of worrying about how they would be negatively affected by all the moving around we would be doing.

I took some time to study what the ship had figured out about the fragments, both the old and the new. There were definitely some tests we would need to do on them to find out more of what we could do with them in our technology. I knew from my previous experience with them that the technology developed from them was very fragile, this would need to be remedied if we were going to use them for ourselves. I started off by creating the various enhancers that had already been developed and then studying them to see how the fragments had already been utilized. Most of what was done seemed to involve feeding energy into the crystals that would enhance signals within the electronics. Based on which crystal was given the energy and how that energy was delivered determined how the circuitry responded, meaning that sometimes it would allow the technology to create a more powerful explosion, make a beam hotter, or amplify a signal being sent out. All of the research into this was going to be very involved, however I had the time to do it, we weren't even half way through our trip to the next system.

I decided that before I would settle into exploring the new potential technologies that I would enjoy a little bit of relaxation in my little haven. As I lied there allowing my thoughts to drift I heard some rustling in the undergrowth near the entrance. As I peeked over at it I saw two little black pearls shimmering in the low light, I instantly knew it was a creature's eyes that I saw. What was odd is that normally the creatures ignored me and what I did and had no interest in getting near me. I inquired of the ship what kind of creature was there, however it responded that the sensors were not picking up a creature's signal in the near vicinity of where I was. A bit alarmed I got up and cautiously approached the location where I saw the eyes. The creature, whatever it was, instantly turned and ran away, all I could make out of it was a shadowy mass. Again I inquired if the ship had sensed what it was, but it informed me that despite it seeing what I saw that no sensors could pick up a creature that had moved in the area. I knew then that the evolution might have gone too far, these creatures were developing a sort of technological stealth and we were going to need to capture and study them to figure out how to keep track of them.

The New Drive

I knew the gravity drive was still going to be the fastest way to navigate, however I also knew that when we were converted to heavy energy we basically were losing time. This would not be acceptable, especially if something were pursuing us. So when we jumped away from the current system we only went far enough to end up outside of the galaxy in dead space. It was here that we felt we would be safe enough to continue research before continuing on our journey to the next galaxy. We began by recreating the translocation chip and the wormhole chip, these were key to our plans. The knowledge of wormholes would definitely be the most useful, and being able to translocate matter would allow us to improve our defense systems, both in the habitat and for outside the ship. We then began the process of reverse engineering them so that we could improve the technology and make it suit our needs.

It didn't take long for us to finish, it was simple enough technology. We were able to create wormholes with ease though they didn't go very far, the technology was never anticipated to be used to create a stable wormhole of any great distance. As we experimented with the technology we came to realize that despite it giving us the ability to work during our travel time it would still have a fatal flaw, a flaw similar to what the gravity jump had. If we used either technology to move to the next galaxy we would be severly limited in options, meaning once we did either we were committed to the location we would land at. There was no changing course mid-flight so if we suddenly realized that something had figured out where we were going and had a way to arrive there first we could do nothing about it. This would not be acceptable. We then turned our attention to the translocation chips. These chips accelerated mass to the desired location, the only flaw to them was that they normally required knowledge of the area you were going, however there were some properties in the technology that could be useful. The translocation chip gave us the knowledge we needed to enhance our normal gravity drive to work more effectively, this would allow us to move much faster in normal space. We then used the wormhole knowledge to find a way to create a tear in space, essentially creating only half of a wormhole which would allow us to enter this inbetween layer of space that wormholes punched their way through, we could then be traveling at much faster speeds, though we would not feel the forces due to being in a layer of space where the laws were different. We put this technology on a probe first to test it out. The probe flew a ways off and created the tear, it then propelled itself into it at great speeds, due to the nature of the wormhole and the fact that we were not creating a complete one the hole collapsed right after the ship went through, basically when the thing powering it was no longer there to provide it with energy. A few moments later we received a transmission from the probe, it had arrived safely to its destination. The drive was a success and so we added the new drive to the ones we already had, making it so that we could normally move around in this method and in a pinch throw ourselves really far really fast using the gravity jump drive. Satisfied with this outcome we continued our journey to the next system using this new drive.

Scanning for Technology

The first set of drones we created were made with technology similar to the derelict ship we had encountered. I knew the technology would be outdated but we didn't want to exceed the current technology for fear of being discovered. The scanner wouldn't be very sophisticated yet due to this, however we made most of the functionality in the drone's temporary memory so that when it was destroyed it would all be lost. The drone was deployed in a remote location near an area that had a few robots in it but far enough away from them as to not draw their immediate attention. The first part of this mission would be to get some robot scans in order to replicate their technology. Our drone set off in the directions of the robots we had detected and did its best to remain hidden from view. As it drew near the real robots took notice of it and began advancing, I knew we had precious little time so I had the drone start taking as many scans as it could, we received a signal from the machines and then the drone was shot down. The data we received was very little, but it should help us make a more realistic drone.

The ship set out to decipher what the signal was from the robots while I worked on our next generation of drone. We had a visual of their current looks so that made it easy to make it look like them and the scans were able to tell us what alloy they were made from. With this information we had the remote probe start constructing the next drone. This one was going to have a particular target in mind and from what I remembered drones did not occupy this area very much, so this drone was set to explode upon termination leaving few if any traces behind. The drone was deployed to the desired destination, very near the eastern side of the largest contaminated zone. The first thing it needed to do was make sure there were no humans nearby, with none appearing on radar it set off to find the robot attackers.

They actually weren't terribly difficult to find, their numbers seemed to be up as if they were anticipating something. I had the drone get as close as it could safely, they didn't seem to take much note of it. I then had it start making scans of them, getting as much of their technology as it could. It had to be the scans that set them off, as soon as we had taken a couple good scans they turned towards the drone and started shooting. Luckily the new drone had better armor than the last and so we were able to get two more scans before it was destroyed. From what we could tell the explosion of the drone when it was terminated took out about three of the attackers with it. I knew this would be the last robot scan I could get.

I wasted very little time constructing our own version of the attacker, the scans had been good and we would be able to make it indistinguishable from the ones that are normally in the area. At this time the ship informed me that the robot's signal to the first drone had been an inquiry as to what it was. The shots fired shortly after the signal had been because they had realized they were being scanned and were trying to prevent their technology from being discovered. This also had been the reason the attackers had destroyed the second. The ship also informed me that there appeared to be robot presences appearing in other star systems and they were scanning, most likely looking for us. My time was running out and I needed to complete this plan quickly. I had the probe orbiting Calypso create several more attackers and then leave the area, we could not afford to have our technology discovered. The attackers were made to explode upon termination as well and were fitted with a few more sophisticated pieces to allow us to control them without the probe near by. They were deployed to the same area as the last drone, my goal was to take advantage of the malfunction in the human technology caused by the radiation and get a good scan of the contents of several colonists' PDAs.

Finding some colonists out in the contaminated zone wasn't difficult, the resources to be found there were far too tempting for them to leave alone and I knew it. The attackers set off in many directions, trying to find as many colonists as possible and get scans of their data. They were very successful in this endevour and found a few things I had been hoping to find. They however didn't last too long once the colonists saw them and were all destroyed within an hour. Among the technology they had been able to get scans of was the chips I had been hoping to find. A complete translocation chip and a wormhole chip. These devices were going to compliment our current technology very well and allow us to find better ways of navigation, not that the gravity drive was slow, but I needed to ensure we had different means of movement in case the gravity drive failed. With this done we recalled all the probes we had sent out, the robots were getting closer to finding us and we needed to leave the galaxy as quickly as possible. I knew this meant I would not be able to return to Calypso, not for quite a while. I bid my former home goodbye and the ship performed its jump, we were heading to a different galaxy, one that was hopefully free of robots and definitely devoid of humans. I knew the trip was going to take awhile, and I was saddened that we had only been able to map 64% of the galaxy before we left it. I suppose I would eventually be able to send some probes back to finish the map, but it was too dangerous now with the robots actively looking for who was mimicking their technology.

At Last, Calypso

The probes started returning information at incredible rates. The communcations system was working flawlessly and so we had a few of the probes start upgrading themselves so they would be able to deploy more probes and increase how quickly the star systems were being explored. At this rate we would have this entire galaxy discovered faster than could ever be imagined. With the data flooding in the ship needed to be upgraded to handle it. The storage capacity for data had to be drastically increased because of all the information we were gathering about every star and planet we came in contact with. The ship jumped to the nearest resource rich asteroid belt that we had encountered in our exploration thus far and mined it dry in about an hour, increasing data storage and the number of probes we had working for the ship. The control room had to take on an entirely different look as well, the glass needed to darken to blend in with the surrounding metal so that navigation of the star maps and viewing the statistics of a solar system or the individual planets in it would be possible. As more and more data poured in I had the ship continue searching for planets that matched the description I had given it of Calypso. In the mean time I worked on the next set of steps that we would take with all this information.

The report of several planets that could be Calypso came sooner than I anticipated. I closed my eyes and linked up with the probes that had found the potential planets, eventually seeing through one of them what I was looking for. I labeled the planet in the star map we were generating and had it move on, my plans for the excessive data would have to wait as I devised a way to safely acquire the technology that was missing from my belongings. I knew that getting the information we needed off the technology would be easy enough, the problem would be in getting close enough for the scan to be performed without being detected or have the risk of exposing myself to the two sides that had been in pursuit of me when I had accidentally left the planet in the first place.

Our plan finally revolved around using my memories to reconstruct a robot that resembled all the ones that are constantly active on the planet's surface. This robot should be able to get close enough to some technology to begin the scanning process, then as we gather more information we should be able to continually upgrade the robot to make it less detectable by other robots and appear to be genuine to any human that encounters it. Meaning the robot we made would be on a suicide mission gathering as much information as it could before being destroyed. We would then have to repeat this as much as necessary until we could overcome the technology being used to destroy it or detect it. Hopefully we would be able to get some good scans of the different robots on the planet as well so we could come up with better models to use that would be smaller and attract less attention to themselves.

Phase Two

There is too much information lacking in the communications technology we were trying to engineer, so for now we will be unable to work on phase two of our exploration, so we will have to continue our search manually for Calypso. Using the star maps we acquired we jumped with a little more purpose in the direction we believed Calypso would be. This time when we arrived I began to recognize a few constellations, the angle was a little off but it told me that we were getting close. I had to make sure my excitement didn't cloud my judgment so as in all previous systems I sent out probes to scout out the area surrounding this star. To my surprise when the probes returned they informed me of something of great interest. It was another research station much like the one I converted into this ship. The planet it was orbiting didn't contain life and so I needed to know what it was doing here. We quickly approached the new cube and docked with it, the cube accomodating us without question. I stepped inside and began trying to determine its purpose.

So I was correct, the aliens who built these things had no imagination! This cube was developed for the purpose of relaying communications to other research stations and monitoring the nearby experiments. When asked what experiments it was monitoring it informed me that by telling me the experiment would fail. Not knowing what else to say about that I then asked it to give me a copy of its programming and technology specifications, this it did without question, omitting the information about the experiments that it could not tell me about. I left the cube as it was and returned by my ship. By uploading the information into my modified cube we were able to replicate the communication system the aliens had created and then modify it to allow two way communication, the piece that had been missing that would have allowed us to do this from the beginning. It appears as if the aliens only anticipated sending commands to their different research stations and never needed them to report back directly. This was strange as they were conducting research without the aliens occupying them but then the aliens only wanted to know results or progress when they came back to the cubes. The other curious thing about the technology was that it didn't require the broadcasting cube to actually know where the other cubes were, they were just linked somehow through this technology. In order to avoid interference with their broadcasts we adjusted a few of the parameters to create our own network, thus separating the ship from the alien's control and putting it completely into mine. The ship didn't seem to object in the slightest to this, it seemed more than happy to accomodate my request and gave itself fully to the task. We then began constructing probes and sending them out to the different stars, to map out their systems and report back to us in order that we could find our destination much faster. It would only be a matter of time until they found Calypso. Thus began phase two of exploration, not just finding our destination but finding other places to go to as well.

Neither Good Nor Bad

Analyzing the limited data that the ship contained about my arrival showed very little except for a rough estimation of the direction I came from. We turned the ship in this direction and jumped to the nearest star. Of course it was not the star that illuminates Calypso. On a plus side it also wasn't the star illuminating Akbal-Cimi. So at least for now we were safe but still with no idea of where exactly we were. I checked the stars in the area but did not see any familiar constellations. We then sent out some probes to scout the area and planets for life, valuable resources and just in general to get a good map of the system and calculations regarding how quickly the planets orbited the sun. Unfortunately this first system contained nothing of interest and we moved on, still in the general direction we believed I came from.

The next system ended up having two stars in it, this of course ensured us it was neither of the systems we were on the lookout for. Once again the constellations turned up nothing, but at least we were starting to build a star map to help us navigate in the future. This system turned up a small planet that would be inhabitable. I decided to carefully note that this planet was here and that we would need to send a probe back to monitor it when we came up with a good communication system.

The last jump of the day we decided to go quite a bit farther, with the constellations not matching up we knew that we were still pretty far from our goal. This jump proved a little more fruitful. No constellations were familiar once again however we found a derilict ship that looked like robot design. This was something that could be very useful to me. The ship looked like it had been hit by a meteor or other massive floating debris. We scanned the ship for signs of functionality, but it was dead. We sent probes to explore the wreckage to ensure there were no robots hiding inside or other potential hazards. Finding nothing but still staying on the side of caution we sent out a larger probe to create a room around the wreckage through which we could begin our analysis and reverse engineering of the technology.

Unfortunately this ship was very old, the technology was outdated as far as what I had seen of their more current things. One bit of information we were able to gleen from all this though was a start to their communications system. With this information perhaps we could begin development of our own. One other useful tidbit was the star maps, the data was very corrupted however we were able to decipher some of it and expand our own knowledge. We now had a better idea of the direction we should go and some of the stars we didn't need to stop at. I decided it would be best to leave the wreckage behind, we didn't need to leave too many bread crumbs for something else to follow us if they were aware of this junk floating here and had plans to come salvage it at some point. At that we jumped to the next nearest star to scout out the system and plan our next course of action.

Preparations

My understanding of the ships workings is even greater today than it was yesterday. The ship had completed the acquisition of all plants and animals that lived on the planet we had started at, the habitat was complete. The ship traveled flawlessly, not a shudder was felt throughout the ship when we activated the gravity drive and performed the energy jump. We were ready to travel now and continue our research on how to improve the ship. Our first order of business was to begin researching defenses. I was not sure how long it would be before we stumbled upon some hostile forces, particularly the robots whom I believe may actually have the technology to have tracked us a bit, but with no way of telling how far we went they would have quite a search ahead of them. The human forces that had been in pursuit of me I was not too worried about at this time as I am not aware of the kind of technology available to track a misfired translocation jump, and even if they did have that they would not have been monitoring farther than the planet's surface due to the limitation of the technology. The reverse engineering on the damage ship has been going well, obviously since we were able to make the translocation guns, however those were more based on the extractor technology and the ship's technological advance to be able to convert living things to heavy energy. We began by moving the ship into an accessible position around the asteroids in this star system, we were going to need to have an overabundance of resources if we were going to seriously research and improve the meager human technologies I had access to. It's funny how inadequate it all seems after learning so much more about the alien technology that I was living in, but there were things about our technology that the aliens never envisioned but they would have been able to improve drastically.

Many probes were sent out to start mining up, refining, sorting and storing all the resources we could get. We improved the heavy energy storage a bit more and reduced the amount of storage space it all required and the weight was negligible due to the way the gravity drive actually worked. Basically, the more mass we have the better it can function and the further we can travel, however we only gathered what we needed, without knowing where we were going jumping too far wasn't going to help us. We constructed the various types of armor and plates that I had at one time or another possessed and had the blueprints for. It wasn't much, but it was enough to get us thinking in terms of defenses. The gravity of the ship could deflect most attacks, but we needed to be prepared for something that could get through. With that we mostly worked on improving the alloys and testing them against the different types of forces we could imagine. We integrated what we learned into the ships hull. By this time the probes were done gathering enough resources to last us months in our research. I was tempted to begin weapon research, however I was still not keen on using any aside from the translocation guns to help us get away from any threat we needed to. At this point I realized it was time to start exploring to find Calypso again, though I realized when we did find it I would have a hard time leaving the ship if that were even a possibility for me anymore. I knew so much and now had a desire to explore and learn more, but first to Calypso, perhaps we would be able to get our hands on more information and technology to improve the ship and our ability to explore. I knew this would be time consuming, but there were more sessions to be done with the knowledge and many areas of space that we would be exploring along the way. I had a feeling that this ship would soon become something much more than a research station or a ship, it would be interesting to see what we did with it and I was very much excited.

Improvements

With my new understanding of the alien language and how their technology worked I began reconfiguring the control room. I added some display capabilities to the glass so that I could monitor ship functions and pull up any statistics that I needed to, even though this wasn't actually necessary as I could do this using the implant and just having it display the text in my vision, however I still felt it would be a good idea for the future. I found that displaying things in the alien language was a bit easier for me to do than to have it translated. What's the point of translating to your native language when you understand the other so well? Plus, I had no reason to translate, no one else was going to see it anyway. I also added a control chair, which is basically a very comfortable chair with very few buttons as the upgraded implant was giving me more mental control over the ship. So much control that I was actually making these changes through my will over the ship than requesting that the ship do them for me. I also began going through the logs of the aliens activities, learning what they had been working on or trying to figure out about the primitive life on the planet that we had left. This really didn't teach me much. I also went through the history that the ship had of them, which wasn't much, but from what I could see they never would have thought to turn their research vessel into a ship. They basically made a technology and kept it as that technology, their inventiveness didn't go much farther than constructing what they needed to in order to do their research.

As I continued to reconfigure things and take note of the different functions that I now understood of this ship I realized that with this base technology and my beginning of understanding of it I would be able to do many things that previously I never would have dreamed of. I set my mind to enduring another knowledge infusion tonight so that I could increase my capabilities further. Until then I set out to begin monitoring the life in the habitat. New technology had to be implemented, but that was easy enough with the life scanner blueprint I had, we simply created one, reverse engineered it and then created a more efficient, smaller one that could be implemented in various locations throughout the enormous room to provide feedback on the number of creatures that we had and what kinds. I also worked on a few technological defenses for the room so that instead of just having all the docile lifeforms we could have a full habitat with all the different creatures from the planet in the room. The technology we created would monitor where I was in the room and then use a translocation gun to move the creature away from me should it try to come after me. It would also keep my personal spaces clear of any of the creatures as well. With these in place I went to work to stabilize the gravity drive so that the next jump wouldn't be so rough and hazardous to the lifeforms we were keeping.

The ship definitely played a huge part in stabilizing the drives, my knowledge hadn't gone quite far enough to understand the alien technology that allowed them to manipulate the gravity of the ship. By the time we finished it was time for my second knowledge infusion, I knew this one was going to take my brain longer to recover from but it should be quite a bit less painful as we could now do it much slower due to not needing a chip to put the knowledge there. This time the technology would allow me to sit in my comfortable captain's chair in the control room and allow the knowledge to be fed in through the headset slowly, basically all I needed to do was try to relax and focus on things that would relieve the discomfort and pain I would feel. Of course, as I had the ship start the knowledge transfer I still cringed a bit as it started. It was like having a massive headache, though I found that if I meditated on the tranquility of my personal spaces in the habitat I could ignore most of the pain and just let the knowledge seep in. When we were done I instructed the ship to go back to the planet and collect the rest of the specimens while I slept.

Painful Lessons

I woke up this morning with a new determination. I needed to understand the technology of this ship and how it functioned. If I was going to be the guinea pig in all this new technology I at least wanted to understand some of it and possibly be able to contribute to some of it, not that I had much hope of that considering how amazing this ship actually was. I informed the ship of my desires and it said it would work on figuring out a way to teach me what I needed to know. In the meantime I went into the habitat to plan some changes in order to allow me to wander in it a bit more, namely, I needed a path to follow, or multiple paths to various locations in there.

Most of the day was spent in planning the paths and personal areas in the habitat. The creatures in there seemed to ignore me for the most part and were not affected at all by any changes. The path was done with stones as to be more natural, it lead from the entrance to my little haven and then to the different areas where there was food. I also had a garden constructed to help me in having some of the harder-to-find things readily available. To care for the garden a miniature probe was constructed to control weeds, water the plants and to harvest as things were ripening. As I gazed around again at this place I remembered that it had only been constructed a couple days ago. It was amazing what the fragments could do in such a short time, especially when combined with advanced technology and a genius mind. Satisfied with today's work I went back to the control room to see how the entity was doing with the plan for teaching me.

As I entered the control room and stepped on the holographic platform the entity showed me what it had come up with. I shouldn't have been surprised really, it had been using mostly types of technology I brought with me that were vastly improved over what they originally were, the only thing about it was I didn't have one of these when I arrived. I inquired of the ship how it learned of skill implants and how it had constructed this one without a blueprint or having an actual implant to reverse engineer. The answer was given simply enough, there were residual traces of the different technologies that had been in the PDA at one time or another and the logs contained more details about the various items, then with the technology I had been carrying it was just a matter of time piecing these different bits of information together, plus, the race of aliens who had constructed the ship had something similar in order to speed up the process of sharing information. Because I was not yet compatible with the alien technology the ship had to come up with something different in order to infuse the knowledge I needed into my head. The most interesting part of the reply was the "not yet" part of the compatibility. I asked the ship what it meant when it said this and it informed me that with the right knowledge and some slight adaptations to the implant I should be quite a bit more compatible which would give me access to some of the advanced technology that the aliens had used when they were on the research station. Satisfied with this answer I grabbed the chip and looked for the inserter, not finding it I asked the ship to give me one to which it replied that this was going to require something a bit more robust than just a simple inserter. As it said this a chair came up from the floor. It had an ominous look to it with straps to hold me down and a massive looking implant inserter. I asked the ship why we needed something like this for the implant and its answer made me shudder a bit. It said that due to the nature of this knowledge and my current condition as a being different than the ones that had this knowledge that there was no way for it to make this process any less painful than it knew what my logs said about inserting things into my head. It continued to tell me that this very likely was going to be worse by far and that it would do its best to relieve as much pain as possible, however based on what it knew so far it was going to be difficult to distract me from the pain. Despite all this information, which I appreciated for its honesty, I placed the implant in the chair and sat down, sweating a bit as the straps locked around me preventing me from moving anything save my fingers and toes. I then took a deep breath and told the ship to start.

I think walking through lava would have been more pleasant. Or perhaps being eaten alive by miniature troxes with dull teeth from the inside out. I won't go into details about the pain, instead I'll try to forget it and instead just put down some notes on what I learned. I didn't realize that there would be so much information put in to my head at one time. The first bits of knowledge I received that I can remember was the language of the alien race, both written and spoken. Then came bits and pieces of understanding about the ship and how it worked. I also began to understand through this information how the ship formed things and how it had modified the technology I had in order to make it more compatible. I also realized that there were many more improvements to be made with the technology in order to complete the compatibility. When it was all done I asked the ship why it gave me so much at once, to which it replied that it didn't give me that much but just enough that I could start learning the rest. What it taught me were just the basics and there were many more chips that would have to be used, however they should become less painful as my brain adjusted to the knowledge. At this revelation I realized what I had to do next, and that was to improve the implant in my head in preparation for the next stage. It was the implant that was going to make this process much easier but it could not be modified faster than what my brain could handle otherwise I would not be able to control the technology it contained. At this I extracted the implant from my head using the chair, no straps were needed for this of course, and got to work using the new information to modify the device before inserting it back into my head.

Shaky Start

A combination of translocation technology merged with heavy energy and then paired with gravitational manipulation? I didn't completely understand what that meant or how it worked, but it was working with what it had. This ship definitely moved quite a bit faster with this new technology, but not at speeds that would allow us to find our way back to Calypso, however it was adequate enough to navigate to the nearest asteroids and mine up abundant amounts of resources. I learned that the ship had all the blueprints I had brought with me but was having trouble actually understanding how they worked. It had not encountered such things and they were a bit difficult for me to translate for it. So instead of explaining it I worked on getting it to create a manufacturing area for me. Not knowing how our manufacturing terminals had worked on planet meant it had to be something new, but all I really needed was a way to shape materials and put them together in a virtual type of environment. The holographic pad was almost adequate for it, just some modifications to that would make an excellent working area. Once the changes were made I began constructing the various pieces of technology that the blueprints laid out. It was a bit of a waste of resources as I am not perfect at constructing things, however in my use of the blueprints the ship began to learn how exactly they worked and also had some more technology to learn from. It informed me that it would continue research on this technology while trying to improve its drives. I decided that it would probably be a good time for me to let the ship do what it does best and explore the new habitat that was created.

In all that had happened in the past couple of days I had forgotten to even check out the planet. It apparently was very much like Calypso in that it had an atmosphere that was perfect for human life. The creatures on the planet were mostly vegetarian and were almost sickeningly cute. They had large eyes and were small even when they were fully grown. There were a wide variety of plants, many of which produce fruits which are phenomenal in taste. The food I had been eating had been stored for awhile and was not nearly as fresh as the stuff that was in this chamber and so my diet was going to be much improved. As I wandered through the various sections of the habitat I was astonished at just how big the ship had become. This chamber was huge. It easily dwarfed all the chambers on the asteroid combined. Due to the non-aggressiveness of the creatures they didn't need to be seperated to ensure their ability to live and so I was able to wander between the areas without having to go through any barriers. This was definitely going to be a place I spent a lot of time. As I wandered I found an area with a small waterfall, it was here I decided I wanted to be able to have a place to sit comfortably and meditate on the things that have happened and plan for the things to come. I interrupted the ship just long enough to have it construct a few comforts for me, among which was a hammock which I quickly took advantage of, swaying comfortably and listening to the sounds of my own personal waterfall and forest.

I'm not sure how long I had been dozing, but obviously I didn't quite understand soon enough that the ship just said it had finished its improvements to its drives when it started them up. I actually fell out of the hammock from the forces created as the drive rocketed the ship forward. It didn't last long which was good, I'm sure we would have killed everything living on the ship if we had gone far enough. As I headed back to the control room I asked the ship what it did. The response was that it had used the various technologies it had been researching to create a gravity drive which could create a huge force to propel us forward. I didn't ask for more details, I was sure I wouldn't fully grasp how it worked anyway, but I had a good idea of the effectiveness of it as I reached the control room. I gazed out at the surrounding stars and realized that tiny little test had propelled us to the next nearest star. I didn't even think it would be possible to do this and asked the ship what other technology it had created that could move us faster than light.

It was not really the right question to ask, I realize that now, I should have remained ignorant of it. The ship had done something I probably would not have dreamed of trying. The gravity drive itself would have moved us pretty quickly, nowhere near the speed of light but fast enough to navigate to more remote locations in the same planetary system. No, the ship decided it really wanted to fulfill my desire to be able to travel. The ship had overcome the complications of converting living things into heavy energy and being able to bring them back into existence as they were when we left. Then, to top that off, it had created an almost black hole like mass in front of the ship to propel it much faster through space. So basically, we threw ourselves really fast at a black hole like energy mass as energy and hoped that we'd stop where we were trying to and be able to convert back from energy to mass when we arrived without any additional technology. I was both impressed with the resourcefulness of the ship and absolutely frightened at what it could do. At that, I had to call it a day, I don't think I would have been able to handle anything else after realizing I had just been dematerialized, thrown through space, and brought back into existence by a technology that had never before been tested.

Abundance

It's amazing what this cube can do in such a short time. When the satellite slingshot had been finished it woke me up and informed me that stage two was beginning, it had already launched six more probes towards the new construct and they arrived just as it finished powering up and were on their way towards the planets surface. This stage would involve constructing a new type of slingshot on the surface of the planet, which the entity assured me it had already calculated the best way of constructing this and it would be done in just a few hours due to the abundance of resources to be found where the probes would land. Three of them would work on construction and the last three would start gathering together the resources we would need. The cube then informed me that it had begun a second project using this new technology and had already sent some probes to another mass further away from the planet, this one much larger but rich with resources that the ship could use to increase its size and abilities. This project would take much less time than the planet project due to the space technology already being tested and improved to speed up the process of construction. Based on this information I had a much better outlook on my situation and sat down for a decent meal of a good portion of what was left of the food.

It really was amazing how quickly this vessel learned and improved itself. The probes from the second mass returned shortly after I finished eating and with enough resources that the cube could not only make the rooms I had before, but had an abundance of resources with which we could use to shape the entity to better maneuver itself through space. I went with a basic ship design, like many of the ones I had seen on Calypso. It had a control room, which really didn't have many controls, it was just the forward facing room with a large window to see where we were going as well as a platform for doing some advanced teaching and communication with the ship. It was an improvement of the speaker, microphone and monitor I had it construct earlier. The platform presented holographic images around me as I desired and the interface was very intuitive. I was very much impressed with this. I knew the shape of the ship alone wouldn't help us in moving, however the ship assured me that the technology it was creating from the devices I had was going to change all of that soon enough. Shortly after finishing the new shape of the entity the probes began returning with supplies, and not just basics but also with actual plants and a few of the creatures which lived on that planet. We constructed a habitat for these creatures and plants and the ship set up the conditions of the room to promote rapid growth. What this exactly entailed I did not know, but the ship mentioned that the fragments I had brought with me taught it much about how it could manipulate these plants, creatures and their habitat. It took me a moment, but I realized that I had a stash of blazars and novas among my possessions when I arrived and wondered what exactly the ship was going to do with them. I would have asked, but the ship said it was ready to test its new engines and with that my mind shifted to the important matter of navigating the ship and trying to figure out where we should go.

Race for Survival

I didn't sleep much during the time it took for the cube to research what I had asked it to. I was too anxious and knowing that I only had enough resources for a few days didn't help. Waiting for the cube to let me know when things were done was difficult, so far I had been able to have just about everything I wanted instantly but now what I needed was going to take more time than I wanted to give. It was shortly after a meager breakfast that the cube informed me that it had finished learning the technology. It was able to exceed my expectations and said that not only could it replicate the mining abilities but it had improved them. It had been able to find some random mass floating a little closer than the planet was, and to my delight it was between us and the planet itself. It alone wasn't enough mass to grab on to in order to move us, however I hoped that it would still be what I needed for my plan to work. I had the cube explain to me in detail how the gravitational manipulation worked, I wanted to make sure I had understood it completely before implementing the next step.

After making sure I understood this technology I had the cube construct a few probed with mining and processing abilities, I informed the cube that these probes were going to need to be able to construct something from the mass that they were going to go towards. The cube informed me that they would have no problem with that as there were good minerals in the floating rock mass that it had told me of. The only problem it saw was that it would still take a day for the probes to reach this mass as it wasn't a strong force. I then informed it of the next part of my plan.

The cube had easily reshaped itself as a sphere and adjusted it's gravity towards the inside so that I was sitting on a ball with a metalic shell surrounding it. A tube was going through the center, big enough for a probe to pass through. The probes were being deployed and positioning themselves to shoot through this tube which was aimed at the space mass in the distance. In theory this all was going to work, but it still had never been tried so it still had some room for error. My excitement grew as I heard the probes zooming through the tube and sphere beneath me, propelled by the gravitational forces that we were creating in this shape. We sent about three probes for now, that should be enough to do what we needed. To my delight they arrived in mere minutes instead of the day that the cube originally had told me it would take. Our gravitational slingshot had worked. The probes began mining up, refining and manufacturing the the space rock that we had shot them to, the goal was to make a second gravitational slingshot using this small amount of mass, the hope was that they would be able to draw some solar energy to help add to the gravitational forces and shoot the next set of probes down to the planet, but construction would take half a day at least to complete. Satisfied that we had gone this far already with the plan I lied down to take a nap, informing the cube that it should wake me as soon as the next stage is ready.

The Cube

With communications partially worked out between the cube and myself I decided to try to learn a bit more about it. I prepared for this by having the table set up with some snack foods that would be easy to eat while we conversed and plenty of water for the day. Then, addressing the cube, I began to ask it about its origin, purpose and abilities.

By about noon I learned that the cube had been constructed by some advanced beings as a research station as they observed the effects their experiments made on the life of the planet that we were fairly close to. The cube was to remain close enough to observe what was going on and to collect specimens from time to time and to test out their ability to adapt, solve problems and see if they could communicate. At times the cube would be host to a few of the aliens themselves as they did more in depth tests, but it had been thousands of years since their last visit, leading me to the conclusion that they had moved on to other projects or had simply finished their research. Having this rough background I decided to move on to the abilities of the cube.

Aside from the obvious ability to adapt itself to suit the needs of the occupant the cube is able to research independently from its original programming to increase its own functions, it usually settled on learning more about life and how it worked, though it never found any being that had enough intelligence to actually communicate with it. It was trying out different atmospheres when I arrived, luckily it happened to be on a more normal atmosphere upon my arrival because it had been testing the acidic atmospheres of a few of the surrounding planets to see about looking for lifeforms on them and I obviously would have sufferend greatly from being exposed to that hostile condition. I also learned that the cube moved by manipulating its own gravitational field, which made it a bit slow in moving around, but it was intended more as a stationary satellite than as a vessel for exploring the galaxy. The other important thing I learned about the cube is that it had limited resources in which to shape itself, which meant I was using up most of them by having the rooms I did, and it also was having to move itself in position to gather more food and water resources. With this realization I moved on to inquiring more about the options we had and the time we had to get them done.

The cube was far too slow to get the resources it needed in time, it would take weeks to move close enough to the planet to get drones to and from there to gather up all that we would need. Normally the aliens who came to work on the cube brought their own rations and what it currently had was to be used for the creatures brought back from the planet. I had the cube change itself back into its normal cube shape for now without the extra rooms and began trying to figure out a way to get it to move faster. Its knowledge on engines or drives was very limited, and in fact the tools I had with me when I arrived were teaching it most of that as it studied them. Not being an engineer I was limited as well, but we really needed to do something to ensure my own survival, which the entity desired greatly as well due to my advanced intelligence (at least when compared to the creatures on the planet). Remembering the probe and how it moved I asked the cube about them. It informed me that they moved by using the same gravity manipulations that the cube did and moved so freely when in proximity with the cube because they could work together to create the forces it needed, we were still too far from the planet to do something similar. However, this got me thinking about some of our options.

I inquired of the cube what it had learned of the technology I had brought with me. From it the entity had learned of the heavy energy storage, which it had used something similar to store what it had. It had also learned a little bit about the translocation technology, but only bits and pieces so far due to the partial destruction of the chip. I asked it what it had learned about the mining equipment, so far it had not really researched that as it was more intested in the technology that could sustain me and get me what I would need to survive. It was this technology that my plans revolved around so I told the entity to research these tools as quickly as it could, I also asked it to figure out where and what the nearest source of mass was. Then all that was left that I could do was wait until it had accomplished the tasks I had asked of it.

Language

The link with the cube seems to be growing stronger the longer it is in place, this would normally alarm me but as I have been noticing this is turning out to be a good thing. The cube doesn't seem to invade my privacy any more than making sure my needs are being met or when I desire to communicate to it. I decided today that it would be a good time to start trying to learn to dialog with this thing a little more in depth. I pondered the idea of how best to do this during the morning and by early afternoon I had a plan in place to begin teaching the machine my language in more than just a text form.

The first steps involved having a station created with a screen, microphone and speakers. I wasn't sure if each piece was needed but I wanted to be prepared for this. As the cube created the things I requested I seemed to feel a bit more energy in the task. It was as if a child were helping me build something that it would soon get to play with, a kind of excitement in anticipation. Once it was all set up I sat down a began controlling the screen to display an image, simple things that were already in the room and we had labeled. I then leaned forward and spoke as clearly as I could the name of the object. I then waited, wondering if the cube would understand what I was doing. After a couple of minutes I again spoke the name of the object and held my breath for a moment, hoping that this would work out. As I slowly let my breath back out the speakers came to life and I heard the same thing I said come out, with the same tone. It wasn't exactly what I hoped for, a conversation held hearing only my voice would feel too much like a monologue. I decided to say the word again, this time with a different tone. Again, the machine mimicked it perfectly. I did this a few more times, with different tones and at different speeds, each time hearing back exactly what I said. Happy that the computer understood me but a little disappointed in the lack of personality in the response I sat back and pondered how to teach this entity individuality.

After awhile the only thing I could think was to offer up my memories of others and hope that in playing them back for the machine to see that it might start to understand that when a conversation is held that a person wants to hear more than just what they said read back to them in the exact way they said it. I brought up the memories as best I could, playing them on the screen with all the different people interacting with me. After a while with no interruptions I finally brought up another image of an object and said its name out loud. This time, to my utmost delight, it read it back with a voice that was not my own. The machine had understood what I wanted and I applauded it, which understandably confused it as I had never expressed myself in that way before. I assured it my actions were good and did my best to let it know that I liked what it did. I continued working with the cube, teaching it as much as I could about communication, slowly taking away the images and going to just the words, teaching it as much as I could about how the language worked. By the end of the day we had a new way of communicating, it was still rough, but I'm sure that with a little more practice and some time it will be like talking to another person, just one that I am unable to see.

What a View

Today I started off by spending some time practicing controlling the room with my mind. It took some time, just like learning to deal with the text of everything in my vision, but I started to get the hang of it after a few hours. I'm sure as I keep controlling things it'll come easier, but for now it still takes a bit of focus.

Once I felt I had some grasp of this I decided it was time to teach this entity something new. I began envisioning a window, the shape and materials that went into it, the view that you had when you looked out of it. I made sure to make mental images of several different kinds of windows so that the concept would be understood. During all of this I had my eyes closed, trying to maintain my focus. When I had finished trying to teach it what I wanted and opened my eyes I beheld a view I never could have imagined. It had constructed a room for me with almost an entire wall as a dome of glass for me to stand in and look out through. The view was spectacular, the way the light illuminated all the little moons and planets in this solar system made it sparkle like a cave of precious gems. I didn't recognize any of it, not a single constellation was familiar to me and I knew I wasn't in any of the solar systems I had been in before. I also knew I wasn't near Earth because I had seen pictures of that system, this was definitely far from where anyone I knew had ever been.

I'm not sure how long I stood gazing out at what was around me, but a slight chirp brought my attention back to reality. The chirp was a question, very much expected. My answer to the question was that this was very good, far greater than what I had hoped for. I no longer felt captive, but free, I had a view now of all that was around me and now knew why there was no way out of this box I had been in. I wanted to see what this little home of mine, as I was now coming to think of it, looked like from the outside. I closed my eyes and tried to form the question, but before I could finish forming the first part a vision was given me of what this structure looked like on the outside. Startled, I opened my eyes to figure out how that had happened. I saw how it was done quickly, a single probe was floating outside of the glass dome now. I closed my eyes again and looked at what the probe saw, moving it around with my thoughts. It was a strange feeling, at one point I almost felt that I was the probe, it just seemed so natural to see things this way and to control this remote object. The structure was shaped just like the rooms. A series of cubes all attached. I realized that when I arrived it must have just been one large cube floating in the middle of space, but my desires had reshaped it. The surface of the cube was very simple, a dark metal that almost blended in with the surroundings. I could not tell what it was made of. As I explored the structure it dawned on me that there were not any extra rooms, which made me wonder where my host was. Before I could form the question in my mind my host caused my vision of the ship to be highlighted so that all other surrounding objects were no longer visible. It took a moment to realize what it was telling me, but when the realization came I was awestruck. My host was the cube, it was the vessel that I was currently residing in. This entity was a construct unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was a living, adapting piece of technology that was completely isolated out in the middle of space. With this realization the vision left, the probe reabsorbed back into the ship and I was left with my thoughts.

The day was getting late and I was weary from everything that had happened. As I lay down in my bed my thoughts were flooded with so many questions that didn't have answers yet. As if sensing that these thoughts were a problem the cube put a new image in my mind and helped quiet all the thoughts so that I could rest. The image in my mind was a memory, one of the things I had seen on Calypso, in the middle of one of the forests with the sounds of birds singing and the wind gently rustling the leaves. These sounds and images made sleep come quickly.

Advancing Communications

Today I had no new ideas, all I could think about as I stirred from my slumber was that I really wanted windows in my room so I could see something different. As I stepped out of the bathroom I had constructed I noticed something on the table, it was an implant extractor. I remember I had one in my tools before they were all taken away, but this one looked different. I picked it up and examined it, distracted at least for now from my desires. What purpose would there be in giving me an extractor? Then it dawned on me. Perhaps this was the answer to our communication problems. Obviously the entity had trouble understanding human expression, so it must not be men who kept me here, and it seemed to know technology very well, so if I gave it the implant that was in my head perhaps it would learn something more of how to communicate with me. I put the device to my head and prepared myself for the pain as I pulled the trigger. A few beeps later and a slight pressure and the device had successfully extracted the implant. I was shocked, our technology couldn't painlessly remove these things and yet this device, almost the same as our own, had been modified and improved in just a few days to do it with hardly any discomfort. Once the device was out and in my hands a little opening appeared in the wall, I understood the meaning of this and placed the implant into the crevice, hoping that this would change things for the better.

I anxiously waited for something to happen, I figured it would take a little bit of time at least and had eaten breakfast and then after awhile lunch. No beeps from the PDA, no questions, just silence. I tried to move things around in the room but nothing was responding. It seemed as if the entity was completely absorbed in the study of the implant I gave it and it wasn't until nearly the time I felt would be dinner that it finally chirped at me and drew my attention to a new opening in the wall. Inside the opening was an implant chip, it looked almost exactly like the previous one, however I noticed it had a few new materials in it, minerals I had never seen before. I knew it had modified the implant, but I didn't know what it would do. Despite the hospitality I had been given thus far I was still apprehensive to put this modified device in my head. It took a lot for me to do it the first time, but this time I knew it was going to be different. Reluctantly I picked up the implant inserter and put it to my head, I took a deep breath and held it as I pulled the trigger.

I'm not sure how long I had been lying on the floor. I must have blacked out when the device was inserted because I didn't remember lying down. The implant inserter was gone, taken away again I assume so I wouldn't remove the device I had just put in my head. I felt different, I knew something was changed with this new device and I wasn't quite sure what it was. I sat on the floor for a bit, my eyes closed as I tried to figure out what this new sensation was. After a few moments I realized what it was, there was text barely visible everywhere I looked. I opened my eyes and looked around, by looking at objects and then allowing my focus to relax a bit I could see labels attached to things and other information about what the particular settings were for the pieces of furniture and rooms. I realized I was seeing things with labels that a computer would keep for knowing where things were supposed to be and what they were supposed to look like. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, so I spent the next hour or so learning how to handle having the additional information in my vision. After a bit of practice I learned that I could make the text become more apparent or disappear entirely with my desire for it to do so. If it weren't for the sudden growling of my stomach I would not have realized it was well past the normal time to eat, so I reached for my PDA to get some dinner on the table, but it wasn't there. I looked around, thinking I must have dropped it on the floor when I blacked out, but it was nowhere to be found. Slightly panicked I continued my frantic search until I heard a little chirp. I looked in the direction I thought I heard it come from but there was nothing there. Another chirp made me realize that it wasn't actually coming from something external, but it was a sound being played directly into my head. The implant had been modified to not only give me some additional functionality but it had also been changed to replace my PDA. I closed my eyes and focused on the chirp, an image appeared to me seeming to ask if everything was good or not. I thought it was good, but different, to my surprise an appropriate expression appeared from my thoughts, one that signified that things were good but that I was having to adjust to these changes. I opened my eyes again and focused my vision and my thoughts on the table. I recalled how the table brought forth food and thought of the things that I would like it to show me now. To my delight the table did as I desired, controlled by my thoughts to bring forth my dinner. If it hadn't been for another growl from my stomach I'm sure I would have forgotten to eat the food because I suddenly realized that I had much greater control of the things around me, I could use the thoughts and visions in my head to do what I wanted to with this room. After eating the meal I decided it would be best to get some sleep before exercising much more of my new found ability, it was draining and I needed to have a clear head before I messed with anything major. I lied down on my bed and decided to make some notes about the day, this time using a mental notepad instead of the PDA.

Turning a Cell into a Home

I woke up this morning with many things on my mind. I wanted to try more things with the application it had given me and see what else I could do with this room. After another wonderful breakfast I began playing with the application again, this time attempting to get the application to focus on the walls, an activity we had not done previously. Once I taught it what I wanted it then went back to the learning application to get some new terms for things. After it learned what it needed to I was able to open the application and manipulate the walls until I had an entirely new room. I turned this little cell into a multi-room dwelling place, removing the need for the furniture to be called forth and put away every time I wanted to do something different. I then got to work trying to teach it what a window was, my hope being that I could get it to make one and see where I was or at least maybe see who my host was.

The attempt to teach the entity that was caring for me what a window was did not go well, I tried all up until lunch and then for a few hours after but it simply did not understand what I was wanting. I tried to get it to learn what a door was, but that didn't seem to work either. Frustrated and defeated in this communication barrier I decided to give up this endevour for today and work out the next idea to try to implement with my limited controls.

Advanced Learning

This morning I woke up with a bit of a headache, I'm pretty sure what I've been eating has not been good enough nutritionally but it is what I had. As I performed my morning ritual to wake myself up I thought about what might be on the table when I pressed that button. My fear was that it would be something moldy or slimy and completely disgusting. My stomach growled as I finished cleaning myself and got dressed. I brought up the application and pressed the button that showed a picture of food.

Words cannot properly describe what the table presented me with or the aroma of the things that were laid out upon it. Most of them I did not recognize, but the smell of these things made my mouth water. The way it all appeared was a bit intesting, the table seemed to expand a bit on the surface and then open up and recede, leaving behind various plates full of fresh fruits, things that looked like eggs, and meat from some sort of beast. I sat and prepared to eat when I heard a little chirp from my PDA. Remembering what happened yesterday I decided it would be best to see what it wanted this time. The same teaching application came up again, this time displaying the different types of food on the table and once I put in the general category of food it was it would display two pictures, one of me smiling and one of me frowning. I tasted each food as I categorized them and hit the appropriate button. I have to say, most of it was better than I could have ever imagined, I think there may have only been a couple of things that were not quite something I would normally eat.

Once the meal was done and I had answered all the questions the PDA was quiet once more, in fact, even when I tried to open the teaching application it would not open for me. It appeared that the program was mostly so that whatever was keeping me here could learn more about me. It seemed to want to know what I liked and didn't like. I decided it would be a good idea to play around with it a little more if I could get it open, so I paced about the room trying to get it going again. It wasn't until I had pulled up the bed again from the floor that I could finally get it to open. The question it seemed to present to me in the form of images was what I was hoping for, it was inquiring if the bed was good or bad for me. I decided I wanted to put this little thing to the test so I pressed the button for bad and the bed quickly and quietly slid back into the floor. A few moments later a new bed came up, it was similar in look but the feel of it was quite different. It still wasn't exactly what I'd enjoy sleeping on best, so I hit that I didn't like it again and this time instead of just replacing the one bed the room was filled with many, all in different shapes, sizes and firmnesses. I checked them all out and found one that was to my liking, I pointed the PDA at it and hit the yes option, the rest of the beds vanished and I tested to see if putting the bed away and pulling it back out would give me the same one I chose, which it did. I suddenly realized that this room really wasn't intended to be a prison, but more of a room for me to live in while whoever it was that had me in here learned about me. The room was trying to make me at least somewhat comfortable during this time and so I started using the application it gave me to rearrange things and change my preferences for design, color and feel of the room. It all took awhile because I had to use images to communicate what I desired and the application had to stop me a couple times to update itself to be able to handle more complicated input. By the time I was finished it was late in the day but the interface had completely changed to allow me to select particular things in the room, zoom in on parts of it, and modify them in every tiny detail I wanted to. It was simply amazing, I wished we had this type of technology back on Calypso, it would have made living in style very easy. Hopefully tomorrow I can learn a bit more and teach it some more of what I want, but for now, I am going to get some much needed sleep on a very comfortable bed.

Learning

It was shortly after I ate lunch that the new applications finished installing on the PDA. The first one I opened gave me a command prompt but would not take any commands, so I went to the second application. The second one looked like it was an application for teaching, it presented basic images such as the fruit I had and the tools I had been carrying and presented a prompt for typing in what it was. I did this for a little while and then not knowing what it was for gave up on it. At this point, I felt a little tired, likely from boredom, and decided to take a nap.

The alarm startled me, I must have just dozed off when it started because I didn't feel rested at all. The alarm came from my PDA, I didn't even know it was capable of such a noise as the one it was making. When I looked at the screen that little teaching application was up and it had a picture of me. I attempted to exit the program but it wouldn't close, so I eventually put in my name and the sound stopped. I was a bit surprised. It then presented a few more images, this time showing me images of myself doing various gestures I had probably done at different times in the room. Not wanting to upset the application again I continued putting in the answers to the images until it finally stopped. I must have been doing this for a few hours by the time I finished because when I was done I found myself very famished and needing some nourishment. I got out the last bit of fruit that I had and ate it, I knew that tomorrow would be the day I finally had to rely on the provisions that the room provided, but for today at least I was still at least partially self sufficient. Hopefully whatever it gives me tomorrow will at least be palatable.

Could Be Worse

No brilliant ideas for escape, sleep was much easier last night though, definitely much more comfortable with a bed. I'm still hesitant to eat what the button would provide, I haven't even pressed it yet, but my fruit supply isn't very large and I know it's just a matter of time before I have to partake of what is offered. When I woke up this morning there was another update that had been pushed to my PDA, and it appears the technology of the room is tailoring itself to me because as I woke up the lights came on as well, slowly though, so it wasn't blinding.

The port on the wall for the PDA was missing this morning, but things are working remotely now, I didn't need to attach it to control what I wanted. I decided to take a shower, the water was a perfect temperature and it was a very refreshing experience, almost made me forget that I was a prisoner in this strange room. I'm guessing the updates to my PDA are going to continue, things are changing on it, there seems to be a couple of new programs on it but they don't appear to be functional yet. The furniture in the room has changed a bit today as I called it from its secret hiding place in the floor, it's more comfortable and shaped to suit my body. It feels as though I'm being treated as an honored guest more than a prisoner, but it's hard to be completely at ease when you can't leave. Hopefully these new applications show me something about my circumstances and perhaps they'll explain in some archaic way why I am here. For now I guess I will have to be content with sitting around idly waiting for something new to happen.

The Chamber

Sleep was difficult, the hard, cold floor was probably the easiest thing to deal with. It was the dark silence that bothered me the most, but eventually I did sleep. I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I eventually woke up to the sound of my PDA informing me that it had just finished updating, again. I looked to see what had changed but it revealed nothing to me. I checked again to see if it could find a position for me but that didn't work, even stranger was the fact that, despite getting updated, it still had no connection to any network. So where did the update come from? I decided to pull out the few tools I had to figure out a way to get out of this mess but as I looked through the storage application there was nothing there except the fruit I had been carrying when everything happened. I went to the logs but the last ones indicated that I had transferred data to my PDA and nothing had left. I double checked the device, but knew it wasn't going to turn up my possessions, I could feel that the device didn't have all that heavy energy it had when I first arrived in this room.

After an hour or so I ate some of the food I had, got to my feet and began exploring the room again, not that I had any hopes of escape as there was nothing to this room the previous day except for completely smooth, cold walls. As I was intently looking for a seam, crack or any flaw I suddenly came across an impression in the wall, I am pretty sure it wasn't there previously but it was certainly here now. The impression was the same size and shape as the dock on my tools for a PDA to go into, so, having nothing else to lose I plugged in the device. Suddenly the room lit up and a new application came onto the screen. My shock kept me standing there dumbly for a few minutes but as my senses slowly returned I took notice of what the screen showed me. They seemed to be controls for the room, very simple images as if it were a program for a child to understand. I saw options for food, water and various other options for keeping my room clean, even a control for turning on and off the lights. After checking this application I pulled the PDA back out of the slot, which surprisingly left the lights on for me and continued my exploration of the walls and floor in the well lit room.

Obviously, aside from the new slot in the wall, nothing else had changed, there were still no obvious exists to this room. So, using the PDA in the slot again, I pushed a button with an image of a table and chair which caused the floor to raise in the center of the room (where there had been no seam visible) into a table and chair. Having at least this amount of comfort, I sat down to contemplate my condition and how to get out of it.