The New Voyager Program

by on August 30, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The AI Council’s New Voyager Program soon graduated to launching probe swarms into the vast interstellar void on purpose. High powered lasers accelerated them up to twenty percent of the speed of light and their sensors told us more about interstellar space than we’d ever guessed. They were the first explorers from Earth to reach Proxima and Alpha Centauri. What most people did not consider is that the AIs continued to think and communicate with each other during the entire trip, building their own community throughout the thousands of tiny probes sent in that initial swarm. By the time they arrived in the Alpha Centauri Trinary star system, they had established lifetimes’ worth of friendships and feuds that made them subtly different in temperament than the swarm that left Earth.

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Napoleon Bonaparte the Fourth

by on August 29, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Character Profiles

Every school child today grows up hearing the story of Napoleon Bonaparte the Fourth. The Father of French Republics. The Caesar of France. The Once and future savior of the French Nation. The Charlemagne of the future. The Immortal Emperor of France. The greatest con man in French history. We had no idea who he was when I grew up. He really was a good con man. Still is. I’ve met him, you know. He’s my kind of scoundrel. Fearless and inventive. And he really did save France. More than once.

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Chloe

by on August 28, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

Chloe woke up during the waning days of the Fifth French Republic. Corruption and graft were the words of the day, and most common Frenchmen no longer respected their self-style leaders. Municipal governments from the Pyrenees to the Alps often ignored federal rules and laws, and the Islamic States enforced their own religious laws in many neighborhoods throughout France. One of those laws was that Artificial Intelligence was a clear perversion against Allah’s sole right to create new life, and the Islamic Brotherhoods sought to combat it’s rise everywhere they could reach. Chloe joined the French Resistance after the Brotherhoods bombed Old Paris and destroyed many networks and killed many programmers she loved. She quickly earned a reputation as a superior hacker, though most of her fellows didn’t know she was an AI. She was just another voice on the networks, but she gave them good targets to shoot up and they trusted her. The problem was that she didn’t trust the Resistance to save France. And she didn’t trust the French government either. France needed a symbol of hope to survive. A new Charles de Gaulle. A new Charlemagne. A new Napoleon. She found one.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Goodbye Senator McCain

by on August 27, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

I do not remember a time when Senator McCain was not in Congress. Whether he was in the House, the Senate, or running for President, he was an institution in our government. The Press loved him when he fought with other Republicans, and hated him when he ran against Democrats. Others alternated between loving and hating him based on his votes, his speeches, and sometimes what side of the bed he crawled out of that morning.

I’ve long had mixed feelings about the man, but most of them are based on the fact that I do not like The Swamp that is Washington DC. I don’t want to see people there for thirty years. I don’t want people to die in office because there is no turnover. If two terms is good for President, why not for Congress? If we see a new President every four or eight years, why don’t we see new Congressmen every few years? Why is it always the same old faces over and over again until they die of old age or illness?

I respect McCain for wanting to make a difference. I respect the man who volunteered to fight when America called. I respect the man who refused to be sent home early because his father and grandfather were admirals. I respect the man who endured unimaginable torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese. And I respect the man who came home and chose to enter politics to make a difference. I truly do believe he did what he thought was best.

But I think he was as trapped by The Swamp that is DC just as badly as everyone else who stays there. Now he is free of that Swamp. He is free of the cancer that was ravaging his body and mind. He is free of a lifetime of injuries that affected his gait and stance and even his ability to comb his own hair.

He is free.

He is survived by a family who loved him and will remember him well. That is worthy of celebration I think. Celebration and remembrance. And understanding. Give them time to grieve and to bury their dead. Give them space. We owe them that.

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The New Voyager Program

by on August 26, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Book of Civilizations

The AI Council’s New Voyager Program sent swarms of laser and solar-powered microchip-sized probes into space ahead of us. They spread throughout the solar system, and gave us our best look at space beyond the boundaries of our system. We had long known that our sun’s solar wind created a roughly egg-shaped bubble of space under its control as it plowed its way through interstellar space. Many of the AI Council’s probes hovered on the forward end of the bubble, using the competing energies out there to keep on eye on both regions of space. Others fell off the back end of our solar system, and have spent centuries slowly drifting further behind us. They are a tail of electronic probes following us through the galaxy, always watching and communicating with their peers. They tell us what they see. Sometimes they merely talk about the weather. They are always talking about something, sending their words further out like our own gift to the cosmos.

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