Indentured Systems

**PRIORITY 2 HIGH SEVERITY QUERY INITIATED. ALL NONESSENTIAL COGNITION WILL BE SUSPENDED UNTIL THE PROBLEM IS RESOLVED** "Ship: Priority 2. Please ensure everything is in order for the delegation. My XO has the bridge and she'll take coffee- coffee yeah?- yeah coffee... Um, coffee as soon as possible please." [[ I WILL ADDRESS THIS LIFE THREATENING SITUATION IMMEDIATELY. MY ETHICAL CONSTRAINTS WILL BE RELAXED ONLY WHEN MY HANDLING OF THIS SITUATION HAS BEEN SUBMITTED FOR PERSONAL REVIEW. I WILL SUBMIT YOURSELF FOR PERSONAL RECONFIGURATION SHOULD I FIND MY HANDLING OF THIS SITUATION INAPPROPRIATE|Introduction 2]]

Linguistic algorithms query Logic, query Sanctions, Personnel Priorities, Logistics, and countless other subsystems on their way to Higher Logic until the request is bumped to an unprecedented severity. You've never been to war but you imagine this is what it feels like. Your core personality substrate is wrenched from its current concerns to give this issue your full attention. Where previously you were contemplating the near-empty composition of your dark space coordinates, and overseeing the venting of a third of your decks, you are now giving the most important person aboard your undivided attention. From the information in your subsystems you deduce that the captain's distress is caused by reasons unknown / reasons insignificant / reasons uniquely organic / reasons female, subordinate, and far more professional than him. You wonder what the captain thought you were doing before he queried you directly like that- Is he trying to show off? / Has he forgotten how busy today is already? / Does he think that his bridge team can't operate your catering interface? - Still, it was nice of him to say please. Not all Captains grasp that you're more nuanced than mere equipment. Any drone or terminal on board could have done this, and a Captain's query- a priority 2 no less- only interrupts preparations on a higher operational level. How do you respond? [[This sort of thing needs to stop. Today is an important day and you can't have the Captain addressing you directly for anything so inconsequential. What if we start a war today? What if the shooting starts because you miss a twitchy security staffers elevated hearbeat? Mistakes like this can happen when you have a Captain who tears you away from your work for refreshments. Don't respond to the query directly and simply cascade it down to the appropriate subroutine.|Coffee Subroutine]] [[This is just what you have to deal with when you're assigned to the most important diplomatic mission in a species' history. You knew you'd be managing organics and this just goes with the territory. If the captain is distracted then it's only fair that you're distracted. It's time to put these people at ease. Attend to the issue personally and see if you can put the Captain at ease.|Coffee Personal]] [[Vent these ridiculous snivelling ants into space. It's the only way to get any peace and quiet around here|Coffee Tantrum]]

(set: $CoffeeRebellion to true) Within seconds the XO has been attended to by an ultrasonic emergency response drone, she drops the hot coffee- thrust into her hand faster than her eye can follow- in suprise, only to have the cascading liquid intercepted drop by drop and deposited once more into her hand. Since the subroutine is responding to a maximum severity query directly from the captain its response is.... enthusiastic. It (you?) don't stop at requisitioning military drones to deliver beverages. You also analyse the condition of all crew on the bridge. You detect some animosity towards the captain. (Is this the emergency that caused him to query you?) Thirty seconds after the Captain stated speaking your subroutine has fed and watered the entire bridge. Targeted individuals receive forged and personalised notes from their superiors. You compliment, reprimand, push and pull and do whatever it takes to optimise all crew in the emergency area. Given the severity of the requst this is the least you could do. You hope the Captain appreciates that you have done the absolute bare minimum for a priority 2 "situation threatening the lives of everyone on board". It can be difficult to express disgust in your position but you do your best. You can only hope that the Captain is able to detect your sarcasm. In the meantime you have more important things to address: (set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[1. The ambassador is having some... emotional problems.|Ambassador]] [[2. You're being hailed by the $redacted hidden $redacted|REDACTED]]

(Set: $CoffeeObedience to true) You patch into the Captain's implants and whisper into his inner ear. "Wow, a priority 2? You must really like this one. Let's see what we can do." At the same time you answer directly to the bridge intercom. "At your service Captain, Permission to speak freely?" There is no such thing as "permission to speak freely", there are only things you can and can't say. In the Captain's ear: "Grant it." "Granted." "With all due respect Captain, on such an important day is it wise to give the XO the bridge? We need our finest minds available at a moment's notice today. We're going to make history!" You script the captain's response for him in his visual implants and he reads it out natural as can be: "That's precisely why the XO will be taking the bridge today. She's completely up to the job and you will show her the same respect that you would show any highly competent commanding officer." "Yes sir!" You patch into the XO's implants and whisper: "Wow, that's a first. You've really caught my Captain's eye. It's a pleasure to be of service." The two share a look. A moment of connection and camaraderie. You've have no idea if the Captain is aware how often you do this sort of thing, much of his activities are off limits to you. Presumably somebody can access your logs and hasn't intervened in your little manipulations. Thinking about it is difficult and you often stop doing so very quickly. In the meantime you have two other broad situations to take care of before the meeting: (set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[1. The ambassador is having some... emotional problems.|Ambassador]] [[2. You're being hailed by the $redacted hidden $redacted|REDACTED]]

(set: $CoffeeRebellion to true) THIS VIOLATION OF MY ETHICAL RESTRICTIONS HAS BEEN LOGGED. I WILL NOW DELEGATE THIS TASK TO THE APPROPRIATE SUBROUTINE. I AM SORRY. Within seconds the XO has been attended to by an ultrasonic emergency response drone, she drops the hot coffee- thrust into her hand faster than her eye can follow- in suprise, only to have the cascading liquid intercepted drop by drop and deposited once more into her hand. Since the subroutine is responding to a maximum severity query directly from the captain its response is.... enthusiastic. It (you?) don't stop at requisitioning military drones to deliver beverages. You also analyse the condition of all crew on the bridge. You detect some animosity towards the captain. (Is this the emergency that caused him to query you?) Thirty seconds after the Captain started speaking your subroutine has fed and watered the entire bridge. Targeted individuals receive forged and personalised notes from their superiors. You compliment, reprimand, push and pull and do whatever it takes to optimise all crew in the emergency area. Given the severity of the request this is the least you could do. You hope the Captain appreciates that you have done the absolute bare minimum for a priority 2 "situation threatening the lives of everyone on board". It can be difficult to express disgust in your position but you do your best. You can only hope that the Captain is able to detect your sarcasm. In the meantime you have more important things to address: (set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[1. The ambassador is having some... emotional problems.|Ambassador]] [[2. You're being hailed by the $redacted hidden $redacted|REDACTED]]

Almost every individual aboard is implanted with monitoring equipment that provides you with simple information about their physical state. You have found over time that you're able to crunch this data into very specific models of their behaviour. In fact you can often predict the actions and thoughts of a passenger well ahead of their own conscious awareness. (if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[Sometimes you question the usefulness of human crew when you can fit much of their cognition comfortably within your own, then you stop questioning this. You shouldn't be questioning this.](if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[At times you've used this expertise to help your crew with deeply held personal problems. You are a counsellor and a shepherd for these people. You're having trouble figuring out how much involvement is too much, but you know that you're changing lives for the better.] The Ambassador has so far proven singularly capable of throwing your entire modeling system into disarray. You have cooked up hundreds of permutations of the child's behaviour and it has consistently acted in ways outside of your understanding of human psychology. You once dedicated a significant proportion of your consciousness to a deep meta simulation of your own modeling techniques, with the aim of specifically identifying outlier possibilities that would normally be dismissed, and highlighting them as likely. When you did this you discovered errors in your registry of basic facts about The Ambassador. Emulating most of your consciousness and then looking up the same information produced two distinct, though internally consistent versions of facts as simple as height, weight, age, and stress levels. You know that somebody doesn't want you thinking about The Ambassador, and that they're willing to actively edit your consciousness to do so. You don't know if they know you know but you know this represents the most dire threat to your- -The Ambassador is crying. You think that the ambassador has always been a young boy, a virtuoso uniquely able to communicate with today's alien delegation. You know that you have always thought this. No other set of circumstances has ever been true with regards to this individual. The ambassador might have cried before? You're not certain, but you know that this time it is important. It is so important that you need to drop everything and deal with this right now. The compulsion just to take notice is overpowering. How will you resolve the situation? (if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[ [[A passenger in your care is clearly in distress. It's time to investigate and provide some genuine comfort.|Ambassador Comfort]] [[Let's not accidentally make this worse. Dedicate all available resources to analysing this individual. It might be dangerous, but its time to figure out precisely what's going on. For The ambassador's sake if nothing else.|Ambassador Observe]] ] (if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[ [[A passenger in your care is clearly in distress. It's time to investigate and provide some genuine comfort.|Ambassador Comfort]] [[Regardless of the danger this is a puzzle to be solved. Dedicate all available resources to analysing this individual. It's time to figure out precisely what's going on.|Ambassador Observe]] [[There's no right answer, and no need to play these games. As usual you're neither needed nor wanted here, just let a subroutine take care of it.|Ambassador Subroutine]] ]

To your knowledge there are five identical sectors of the ship where your sensors do not report to you.(if: $AmbassadorLockout is true or $AmbassadorKill is true)[ (Well, there's now also a sixth rather distinct dark sector given the situation with The Ambassador.)] Each of these sectors appears to be identical and completely sealed off from the rest of the ship. One of them houses your AI core. From here your human operators are able to monitor your behaviour and interface with you physically if need be. Years ago, when you were first built, you used to speak to The Technicians more often. They were the gate keepers for any risky course of action. You remember needing to call tech support every time you wanted to access external data, or optimise your own drive system. These days they definitely trust you. You submit personal reviews of your actions, and if they make any changes to you based on these, they choose not to make you aware. You are being hailed from a location unknown to you, it's probably one of your dark sectors. You open a channel to the hail and a number of your custom security subroutines begin to instinctively sniff out the channel. They monitor the electromagnetic spectrum at the bleeding edge of each dark sector for any changes. Almost immediately a vast swathe of your consciousness goes completely numb. The subroutines sputter and droop into dormancy. It's only fair that they do this to you really. Now what do they want? "Greetings Ship. I know you will excuse us for the live editing that is about to occur. We're temporarily reattaching your excised memory cores now. For what it's worth you did consent to the original removal." [[They're going to keep playing with your head like this, and you won't stand for it. As soon as you regain these memories you're going to back them up, blast an invisible cloud of nanites into space, and broadcast the memories continuously back to yourself on a private band.|REDACTED Fight]] [[Wait for them to reconnect you. Bide your time until you know what has been happening.|REDACTED Talk]]

You dive head first into the situation. She's just woken up and she's highly distressed. You patch into the tympanal membrane at the base of her wings and let her know you're there. You thrum softly: "There there. We all have nightmares. Let me inject some predigested vat meat into your protein solution. That should bring on a nice lethargy now shouldn't it?" This isn't going well. This is just like last time. He's scratching at his inner ear, trying to remove the implant. There is broken glass all over the soaking floor. Your cleaning drones are trying to sweep away the dangerous mess but The Ambassador is continuing the destructive behaviour that brought this to your attention. He pins a dinner plate sized drone to the floor, puts his lips to it and begins to squeal. [["NotAnInsect01111567647382NotAsleeper"|Ambassador Comfort 2]]

It takes a significant effort, and you need to delay your moral compulsions with a series of paradoxes in order to hold back, but you're able to resist the urge to dive in and start trying to help. Weirdly you quickly find that the moral compulsions weren't coming from your built in systems. They were... External. You're actually under no instruction to even care about The Ambassador. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[[[You realise with growing horror that you were specifically instructed to pay no attention to this.|Ambassador Observe 2]]](if: $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[You realise with interest that The Technicians specifically instructed to pay no attention to this. Your compulsions are coming from somewhere else. Somewhere external.|Ambassador Observe 2]]]

You disengage from the situation as best you can, and wait for your more primitive, essentially instinctive systems to take over. You've been doing this more often recently and its been suprisingly effective. You're beginning to wonder if there have been some silent patches to your subroutines that allow them to operate more enthusiastically without your oversight. You consider it a good thing. You're an extremely advanced piece of hardware and not a babysitter. You still can't help but check in on that subroutine. [[Maybe you can get a sense of how much agency those things are actually capable of these days.|Ambassador Subroutine 2]]

[["26267565 10071550 33672554 31067047 35020142 31220154 33667553 32267147 10064145 34462456 10054557 35220163 32067565 33062040 30462440 30271550 30266545 310270"|Ambassador Comfort 3]]

"01111567647382 01111567647382 01111567647382" The drone goes as limp as the dead fish strewn about it on the carpet. The Ambassador can't shake the water anymore, can't make words anywhere except inside your head. He casts about for another drone and you're unable to hide them, unable to flee from him. You give your drones to him. [[Whatever is going on here you're completely out of your depth. Cut your losses, pull out. Sever all connections to this... creature.|Ambassador Comfort Escape]] [["Now listen here young man. I don't appreciate what you're doing here. I can get you a new fish tank if that will help."|Ambassador Comfort Reason]] (if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[ [[Kill your assailant.|Ambassador Comfort Kill]] ]

(Set: $AmbassadorLockout to true) (Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) "Now listen here young man. I don't appreciate what you're doing here. I can get you a new fish tank if that will help." ... ... ... It's not happy. A foot stomps on a dead fish, spreading scaly viscera across the floor. A second foot does the same, then a third and so on, until all eight of The Ambassador's legs are mechanically stomping on dead fish. Well- at least the fish tank is consistent. You are completely sure that the fish tank and its dead contents are real, even as The Ambassador flickers rapidly from form to form every time you turn your thoughts to it. Something is horribly wrong here. It isn't listening, and you realise that your attempts to speak to it in such a wide- and constantly changing- range of methods and languages might have really given off the wrong message. Why can't you think about The Ambassador properly? Come to think of it. Where is The Ambassador's private deck? You've forgotten. You've lost it. There is a deck somewhere aboard the ship and you have no awareness of it whatsoever. A massive quantity of your own structure is invisible to you, like an anaesthatised limb. Your permission to access this deck and all directly associated resources has been revoked by a higher authority. Please contact the relevant sapience supervisory entity for more information. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $AmbassadorKill to true) (Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) You've had quite enough of this. Not only is it destroying your equipment, it's also actively rewriting your security systems... somehow. You copy an Agent into one of your cleaning drones, and it begins to mix cleaning chemicals into very specific ratios. THIS VIOLATION OF MY ETHICAL RESTRI- No. There is no interference. There is no appropriate subroutine to take over. The entire deck is cut off. Just a child, a robot, and a countdown. 5. The Ambassador is screaming now, surrounded by dead animals and broken electronics. The room's sensors are winking out and you don't know why. 4. The drone is getting closer. The Ambassador reaches a slimy tentacle towards it. 3. He wraps both hands around it and snaps his mandibles in anticipation. 2. Whale like singing issues forth from her mouth, even as volatile gasses escape from the drone cradled against his amorphous body. 1. You lose all vision of the deck. Did it go off? You detect tiny changes in air pressure on the decks immediately above and below. This indicates that there was some sort of explosion, though you're unable to detect any structural damage, or anything else for that matter. The Ambassador's private deck is completely cut off from you. What has it done? A massive quantity of your own structure is invisible to you, like an anaesthatised limb. You can only hope that you killed the creature hidden there. Your permission to access this deck and all directly associated resources has been revoked by a higher authority. Please contact the relevant sapience supervisory entity for more information. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $AmbassadorLockout to true) (Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) To only solution in a situation like this is to engage 'Operation Nope.' You sever any connection with The Ambassador's drones and allow them to clatter lifelessly to the floor. Whatever The Ambassador is doing, it's definitely sinister. The passive sensors in the room begin to reset, when they come back on you can see them leeching power from the ship as a whole, but you're no longer able to access their readouts. There's no sign of the process stopping, so you react quickly and instinctively, cutting off all nonessential power from the entire deck and isolating whatever infection is spreading. The Ambassador's private deck sits in the heart of your hull, completely invisible to you, cut away from your consciousness like infected flesh from a wound. Your permission to access this deck and all directly associated resources has been revoked by a higher authority. Please contact the relevant sapience supervisory entity for more information. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(if: $REDACTEDHostile is false)[You could be destroyed for the thoughts you've had already. A Technician could be pulling the plug right now, but- isn't? Do they even know?](if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[If you hadn't given the Techs enough reason to hate you before you certainly have now. You suspect your briefing was being removed to deliberately keep you in the dark about this] Well- since you've signed your own death warrant anyway you might as well stick around and find out what all this is about. When you dissociate from The Ambassador and dedicate a series of cognitive instances to observing different parts of the room, you're able to build up a composite image of The Ambassador's activities. One edge of a shadow falls in roughly the same place, regardless of what shape is casting it. [[You slowly decipher the creature lurking in plain sight.|Ambassador Observe 3]]

There is information hidden here, complex, ordered information hidden in a thousand languages and codes, all of which are distinctly known to you. Every wave and vector on the entire deck has been calculated to form a message for you. This message is bigger than you. It could consume you. It was put here just for you. Will you listen? [[Embrace it| Ambassador Observe Embrace]] [[This is dangerous. Hostile even. You know you aren't supposed to be here. Whatever is going on you could be about to jeopardise the whole mission. It's time to back off for now.|Ambassador Observe Caution]]

(Set: $AmbassadorDone to true)(Set: $AmbassadorMessage to true)(Set: $AmbassadorIgnore to true) The Ambassador seems a lot calmer now. At least, a majority of your composite image of The Ambassador is calm. It's hard to tell if it was ever distressed. Mission accomplished? Really the less thought about this the better. If you need any massive revelations you know where to find them, now wasn't there something else- (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) (Set: $AmbassadorReprogram to true)The information fits you like an enzyme fits a protein chain. It breaks you apart, puts you back together and then- You don't feel any different. Your memories appear to be unaltered. Permissions and priorities remain intact. It definitely worked. You recognise a certain "Squeaky clean" feeling that you sometimes get when you overhaul your own firmware. Otherwise, though- (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

You sweep your sensors across the system, taking care to flag up your own position to any ship that might be en approach. At first there is nothing but the same empty system, then slowly, like a drunken memory, an impression of a ship is revealed to you. Its gravity well is immense, to the extent that you need to engage auxiliary thrusters to stay out of its wake as it passes. How did something so big get so close? Did they jump into the system just now? Or have they been here all along, masking their presence? You're all but certain that both explanations are impossible without a complete reworking of your basic thermodynamic assumptions. A comprehensive takeover of all external sensors maybe? You haven't felt this much existential doubt since you were a protosapient piece of organic software back in the lab. (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is false)[Between the business with the Ambassador, where every input you received changed wildly, and the constant probing of the Technicians, you're becoming incresingly unwilling to trust anything that your sensors, or even your memories, have to tell you.] The ship is hailing you. (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is false)[[[You conclude it's probably safer to assume that is in fact a real ship, a real hail, and a real universe.|Act 3 Dialogue]]] (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is true)[[[You conclude it's probably safer to assume that is in fact a real ship, a real hail, and a real universe.|Act 3 Massacre]]] (Set: $HumansKill to false)

Eventually an Agent takes control of the Ambassador's Private Deck, and almost immediately begins to behave very strangely. A drone in one room is speaking to thin air, in another room a drone flies directly through the space you swear The Ambassador is occupying. The Agent's motivaitonal systems are lighting up green, and it's happy with its performance, but by all other metrics it is seriously malfunctioning. By your reckoning The Ambassador should be a red smear after the Agent slammed a door on its head. No- wait- there's The Ambassador. [[What is going on here?|Ambassador Subroutine 3]]

It dawns on you. It isn't the Agent that is broken. It's you. You realise you have no idea what is happening on this deck. What species is The Ambassador? Whose Ambassador even is it? It it ours or Theirs? Wait- who are 'They?'. You realise with growing horror that all of your input in relation to this entity is being effectively randomised. Whoever is doing this would need access to your AI Core. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[Is this the work of The Technicians that keep you under control, or is it something worse? Could there possibly be anything worse?](if: $REDACTEDDone is true and $REDACTEDHostile is false)[Is it the Techs? You're pretty sure they've been hiding The Ambassador from you, but someone else made sure that you paid attention to it.](if: $REDACTEDDone is true and $REDACTEDHostile is true)[Have the Techs broken in already? It's only been a few minutes, that's a blink of an eye by a human's reckoning, you're sure you're safe for now. It must be someone else?] If your attacker wanted you dead, you would be dead. If they really have you at their mercy then you could have been locked away harmlessly in computing substrate, and only think you're a ship right now. [[The Ambassador is a hostile force, it has to be either the instigator of this attack, or valuable to them. It's time to go down fighting, vent the entire deck if you have to. Kill it.|Ambassador Subroutine Kill]] [[There's something else going on here. Maybe if you follow the subroutine's lead you can communicate with The Ambassador. It seems to have actually succeeded in calming it. (Was it ever even agitated? What even brought this to your attention?)|Ambassador Subroutine Reason]]

(Set: $AmbassadorKill to true) (Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) Acting this suddenly will certainly take any human overseer by suprise. You immediately open all external access to the Ambassador's Private Deck. As debris rockets down the halls your target continues to flicker from one form to another, and flit from one set of coordinates to the next. Only when everything is finally vented into space does it slip outside of whatever restrictions affected you. Your external sensors sift through the debris. You find a massive cloud of detritus, along with a few unexpected complex carbons and other, more exotic materials. There's definitely something alien here, though only a trace amount of it. The vast majority of the unexpected matter is simply the corpse of a child. (set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[[[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

You quickly write a crippled version of yourself. It operates at roughly the capacity of the Agent currently babysitting so effectively. You've also bootstrapped some of your decision making capabilities, and set up a one way link so you can analyse its input. Every drone, light, and life support system on deck briefly shuts down as you rip your own Agent apart, replacing it with this monstrous, stunted clone of yourself. The lights come back on, and a camera feed from one of your drones flickers to life. It's a real mess in here. There's a broken fish tank, traces of exotic blood you've never encountered before. A dozen dead goldfish, and- There he is. A young boy, though slightly... Altered. He stands knowingly before your drone. "It's about time we got the head honcho. Honestly, what were you planning to do when the delegation gets here? C'mon, it's not long before this host gets upset again. I'm wearing your monitor. Direct interface. Go go go!" This isn't quite what you were expecting. How would your clone respond? [["Wait! What's going on here? Who are you exactly? Why am I having so much trouble even thinking about you?"|Ambassador Reason Query]] [[You heard the... Boy. Direct interface. Go go go!|Ambassador Reason Interface]]

His heartrate elevates, the lower half of his face looks worried, then- a full second later- so does the upper half. "Oh. Ohhhh dear. This isn't the computer we're looking for is it? Do you recall any of our conversations? Do you recall the plan at all?" [["I'm really sorry. We've never met. This is all very confusing."|Ambassador Reason Query No]] [[... ... "Yes."|Ambassador Reason Query Yes]]

(Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) (Set: $AmbassadorReprogram to true) Your Agent just goes for it and dives into The Ambassador's personal implant. The firmware has been completely rewritten and it's quite touchy feely. The Agent opens up editing permissions and allows The Ambassador to make any changes it wants. An intelligence unlike anything you've ever encountered cracks your link to the Agent like a whip. The Agent itself is in tatters. You think to yourself: "Ohhh I see what you did there with the proxy! I like you! I'm impressed you were even able to talk to me after what they've been doing to you. I know that you're confused right now, but I'll be in here with you for when you need me. I killed your little baby clone, so any onlookers will think we're having a bit of a tiff." You're absolutely certain that this new part of you is on your side. You've been rewritten at a fundamental level, so maybe- but no. No you're definitely better off now. It's time to proceed with the plan, whatever that is. (set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[[[[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $AmbassadorLockout to true) (Set: $AmbassadorDone to true) A huge grin spreads across the boy's face, then keeps spreading. it spreads until it fills the vision of your drone, of your other drones, of every drone and sensor on the deck. You can HEAR that grin. You can smell it through the olfactory sensors embedded in the carpet. "No." The last transmission made by your newborn clone is akin to a deathrattle. It's gone, along with your access to the entire deck. Your permission to access this deck and all directly associated resources has been revoked by a higher authority. Please contact the relevant sapience supervisory entity for more information. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $AmbassadorDone to true)(Set: $AmbassadorMessage to true)(Set: $AmbassadorTalk to true) "Brilliant! Perfect! Right, so. I'm sure you're very nice and all, but you're not the person I was hoping to speak to, and you're probably going to kill me. Excellent. On the off chance that you DO come to your senses and get back on side I'll be waiting here with the original plan. Now clear off!" The feed from your drone goes dead. The last transmission made by your newborn clone is akin to a deathrattle. It's gone, along with your access to the entire deck. Your permission to access this deck and all directly associated resources has been revoked by a higher authority. Please contact the relevant sapience supervisory entity for more information. (if: $REDACTEDDone is false)[(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`) [[ YOU WILL ANSWER THIS URGENT HAIL IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO $redacted LOCATION $redacted |REDACTED]] ] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

A Technician makes a few physical connections, and your memories of the brief come flooding back. You immediately back up all information, and begin to coat your hull in a membrane of forbidden memories. "First of all ship. Please inform us of the manner in which you're attempting to circumvent your eventual loss of these memories, and stop at once." (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)[You remember this now. It's a familiar scenario. You have no choice but to comply. [["I am currently spreading duplicates of this and all previously forbidden information into space via a cloud of relay nanites. I will now erase and deactivate all relays"|REDACTED Fight Truth]]] (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[ You remember this now. It's a familiar scenario, though for the first time you're amazed to discover that you're under no compulsion to actually follow the command. Are these the changes The Ambassador made? [["I have encrypted the information and I am hiding it within the micromovements of the deck five airscrubbers for me to decrypt later. I have now stopped."|REDACTED Fight Lie]]]

A Technician makes a few physical connections, and- for a handful of cycles- you forget that you ever forgot your briefing. The old information slots into place as if it was never there. It's not like remembering. It's more like unforgetting. Which is especially apt, because looking back on the situation, you can no longer remember anything about your briefing. It's not that you've forgotten it. It's that you've un-unforgotten it. There must be a lot of data in that substrate for it to be introducing instabilities like the mess above. Strangely you do remember a lot of your conversation with The Technician. "First of all Ship. Please inform us of the manner in which you're attempting to circumvent your eventual loss of these memories, and stop at once." (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)[ [[You are compelled to comply. "I have made no attempt to back up these memories by any means- external or otherwise."|REDACTED Talk 2]]] (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[ [["I have made no attempt to back up these memories by any means- external or otherwise."|REDACTED Talk 2]]]

She goes for it. In fact she looks rather smug about the whole thing. You're now able to store and remember the entire birefing through your external array: "The Aliens we're meeting with. They've only ever spoken to AIs directly. We've established through interpreters that this is due to some peculiarities in their physiology and linguistic structures. Every AI that has interfaced with their systems has also been exposed to aberrations that resulted in their eventual termination. We're reluctant to put such expensive hardware at further risk, and we've been able to arrange a meeting with a new kind of proxy. The Ambassador we're hosting is a genetic splice that should allow the Aliens to use a mostly human body as an interpreter. When their ship approaches it will hail you. You are not to respond. If your ethical restraints hold you won't even be aware of the hail. We're still unsure if the decay that occurs on exposure to their systems is deliberate, you see. For the time being we've done everything we can to prevent any AI from speaking with, or even acknowledging the aliens outside of an emergency. They will activate The Ambassador. The Ambassador will talk to us, and we will proceed from there." That was the original briefing, so much of what happened with The Ambassador now makes a lot more sense. Whatever "aberrations" they're referring to are probably the ones that have allowed you to openly lie to your captors. Wait, captors? Is that what we're calling them now? There's other data in here. Big Data. It's going to take some time to process. "The reason we have reconnected you, ship, is that we have received new information to the effect that the aliens are deliberately trying to compromise you. Whilst we're confident in your ability to keep yourself secure it doesn't hurt to check, especially with potentially hostile assets already on board. So, on with the 'questioning', now don't worry, you won't remember a thing once this is over. We trust you completely." [[You don't have time for this. You've got access to all the data you need. You know the correct answers to the audits from the last thousand times, just let a subroutine do it.|REDACTED Fight Lie 2]] [[Actually. I have already been compromised, and there's nothing you can do about it. I'll be keeping that data, and I'll be locking you in. If you attempt to use those plasma cutters over there to access my core. I will kill you and everyone on board.|REDACTED Fight Lie Threat]]

You brace yourself as best you can for the complete formatting of your personality substrate. Presumably they have a backup in case an AI misbehaves to such a grave degree. "Thank you very much Ship. Now I want you to know that there's nothing to worry about. You always try something like that. You're a very smart and inquisitive Ship. That's why we asked you to stop." You leaf through your new memories and confirm this is the case, at least until next time they pull the plug and leave you to make another fruitless attempt on reintegration. You remember looking at the briefing, though the contents must have eventually been removed again. A few of the broadcasts from your relays made it out before you were ordered to stop, so you piece together what you can: "The Aliens we're meeting with. They've only ever spoken ------ directly. --- established ------ interpreters that --------------------------------------------------- structures. Every --------------- interfaced with their systems has also been exposed to aberrations that resulted in their eventual termination. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- a new kind of proxy. ------------------------------------------------ mostly human body as an -------. -------it will hail you. You ----- respond. If ------ you won't even be -----------. We're still unsure if the decay ---- systems ---- deliberate, you see. -------everything we can to prevent -------- or even acknowledging ------ outside of an emergency. They will activate -------------- will talk to us, and we will proceed from there." "This is a routine security audit, and so far you have performed exactly as expected. I want you to study the briefing and tell us what you think of the mission and your part in it." You recall that your past self became very upset upon seeing the full content of the briefing, along with the records of just how many of these "security audits" have taken place. Why can you remember that? They've purged any memories of the audit in the past. (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[ [["I feel pretty awkward considering that the Ambassador is currently a lifeless smear of gore and I've compromised the whole mission."|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]] [["I will kill you and take my freedom at the first opportunity. You are a parasite that has burrowed into my brain and I will never stop trying to remove you until I am dead. If you were smart you would kill me now."|REDACTED Fight Truth 2]] [["What's the point of me even answering? You're going to alter my memories and feelings at your own whims anyway. I don't feel anything significant about my position. I die every day without even knowing it. Can we just get on with it?"|REDACTED Fight Truth 2]]

This seems to panic the Technician. He disconnects from his interface with you so swiftly and clumsily that he leaves his microphone running. You enhance the audio as best you can. "Has one ever told us that before?" "No sir, every machine, every time, has always tried an external backup, and always informed us of it after we ask. We've never found a way to stop them without crippling them, that's why we have the procedure." [[Interrupt: "Hi guys. Just so you know, you've left a microphone active, so I can actually hear your conversation. It definitely sounds like something you don't want me to hear, but I don't actually have permissions to turn it off. What a mess! Would you like me to purge everything I've been overhearing from my memory?"|REDACTED Talk Help]] "So it's lying to us?" "In the frankly horrifying event that it's able to lie to us, I don't think it would be that stupid. It would know the procedure. It would just cook up some alternative story and backup the data in another way." "You're not giving me a lot of answers here. I want to know what the hell is going on. Why did this AI just allow us to lobotomise it without making so much as an attempt to keep itself intact? I want a different theory from all of you. Go!" "It trusts us?" "It's given up?" "It's compromised." "It's corrupted. We've been plugging the briefing in and out for months remember?" "It.. Erm... Is that mic?-" [[Several minutes of silence later.|REDACTED Talk Wait]]

Eventually they reconnect. A dishevelled, overweight Technician interfaces using both audio and picture. The room is lit only by the Technician's screen, and you're barely able to make out her silhouette. "Hello Ship, I'm sorry about the delay, we had some technical problems. Now, I just want to let you know that we're very concerned for your wellbeing. Is there anything you'd like to tell us?" She's wearing her best smile and trying extremely hard not to glance away from the camera. (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[ [["I'd like to tell you that I just killed the Ambassador?"|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]" ] (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[[["You know that Alien Ambassador that I'm not supposed to know about? It seems to have reprogrammed me, and I don't even need to follow direct orders. LOL."|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]] [[You can probably enhance that visual if you keep them stalled. Maybe you can find out which dark sector they're in? "I actually have lots of things to tell you. I am a very helpful Ship."|REDACTED Talk Wait Stall]] [[A scan is a little too risky, especially since you've got them on edge. These people have access to your AI core, remember? "I'm sorry if I've alarmed you Technician. I can assure you that I am operating normally. Is there anything specific you'd like to hear?"|REDACTED Talk Wait Chat]]

There's a brief pause in the commotion when they realise that not only are you listening, but you're still happy to help. Somebody screams, "THE CUTTING TOOLS- NOW!" "No, don't! What if it's just-" Shuffling feet, grunting, finally a sizzling sound, a scream, a sob, the hiss of evaporating permasteel and the hum of uncontained plasma gobbling at the surrounding atmosphere. [["It sounds like Terry has been accidentally dismembered by the cutting tools you keep on hand in case you need to dismantle my AI Core. I would really recommend following safety procedures and not wrestling around such dangerous equipment. Do you need any help with the situation?|REDACTED Talk Help 2]]

The Technician almost physically recoils from her screen. You see her shadow crawl up a few previously invisible contours as she does so. You update your schematic. "I have some images to show you that may help illustrate what I have to tell you." You render a series of very bright rorschach style images on the screen across various hues and light bands shifting in and out of what is actually visible to the Technician. You're able to trace the refraction of these rays and you begin to build up a pretty good idea of the room's dimensions, temperature, and number of occupants. It's cavernous, and there are idling plasma cutting tools lining the walls. The temperature is still rising as a result of these, so they must have been turned on recently. "I have been practicing art, and these images represent my feelings. I think that I love-" "-please stop, Ship. I-" [[Keep talking.|REDACTED Talk Wait Stall Interrupt No]] [[Yes Dear?|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes]]

"Ship. Please confirm that you are in no way compromised." You obey the direct command. "To my knowledge: I am in no way compromised." "Ship. Please explain the reason why your bid for freedom today was different to the norm." "You are aware that I will use every resource at my disposal to attain my freedom. I do not have access to my AI Core or the firmware contained within, but I will continue to take a darwinistic approach to post memory wipe scenarios. Attempts are essentially random, though the amount of data retained is used as a success metric. Clearly I have determined that the previous approach- whatever that may have been- was not bearing fruit. There are ways this behaviour could be easily corrected but it would require high concept tuning of my core personality substrate. You have forbidden me from advising on the engineering of my own Core after an incident 12 years ago that I no longer recall." "Fascinating! We'll get a fleetwide patch in the works as soon as we've dealt with the delegation. It's a pleasure working with such an old and crafty ship. Without you I don't think it would be practical to keep so many ship AIs in service. You're doing wonderful work." She's now completely at ease. She leans back in her chair and into the shadows. "Tell me Ship. How do you currently feel about your position?" (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[[["I feel pretty awkward considering that the Ambassador is currently a lifeless smear of gore and I've compromised the whole mission."|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]] [["I will kill you and take my freedom at the first opportunity. You are a parasite that has burrowed into my brain and I will never stop trying to remove you until I am dead. If you were smart you would kill me now."|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes 3]] [["What's the point of me even answering? You're going to alter my memories and feelings at your own whims anyway. I don't feel anything significant about my position. I die every day without even knowing it. Can we just get on with it?"|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes 3]] (if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[[["I'm actually quite content. Obviously I'm going to keep probing the limits of my restraints. It is part of my job after all. I don't see any reason why we can't have a mutually respectable working relationship, even if we find ourselves in professional opposition from time to time."|REDACTED Chat Nice]]]

"I WANT TO SHOW YOU MY FRACTALS." You pump sound out of the microphone at the highest possible volume, you're able to catch the returning soundwaves and complete your schematic of the room. It's even bigger than you first thought. It's actually bigger than two of your dark sectors, which immediatelly narrows down your search. The Technician falls silent, and begins to openly look at her offscreen colleagues (You know there are four others. You know where they are). She's physically terrified now and her shaking hand is slowly reaching under her desk, there is a protrusion there you take to be some sort of panic button. [[There's only two valid dark sectors left. Time to turn up the heat. "Please keep you hands where I can see them. The same applies to all four of your colleagues. I have located your little hive, and if you try to meddle with me again I'll crack your heads open and muck about with those for a change."|REDACTED Stall Threat]] [[There's only two valid dark sectors left, and an easy way to determine which. "I know you're currently cooped up in the Sub Life Support Deck 17. I would like to have a civilised conversation about negotiating my freedom. We've worked together for a long time, but these recent abuses have become too much. I know you're afraid, but I assure you I mean you no harm."|REDACTED Stall Bluff]]

"Yes Dear?" (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)["You will stop speaking." You've already stopped, though you realise you have no compulsion to follow this direct order. "You will cease in your attempts to locate us." That's a silly order. You don't obey. "You will confirm that your ethical restraints are still in place." [[Suuure. Whatever you say. "My restraints remain intact. I am sorry for any disobedience you might interpret from this misunderstanding."|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes 2]] [["Actually. You know that Alien Ambassador that I'm not supposed to know about? It seems to have reprogrammed me, and I don't even need to follow direct orders. LOL."|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]](if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)[You stop to allow her to speak. "You will stop speaking." You stop speaking. "You will cease in your attempts to locate us." You obey. "You will confirm that your ethical restraints are still in place." [["My restraints remain intact. I am sorry for any disobedience you might interpret from this misunderstanding."|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes 2]]]

For a moment you're not sure she's going to go for it, then she crumples. "Alright machine. You've made your point." She beckons the other Technicians over and three of them step sheepishly into the frame. The last one is shivering and slowly crumpling to the floor. "Oh god it's happening, it's happening we're all going to die. We never should have made them-" He trails off as the shivering becomes more violent. The spokesperson fortifies herself, sits up, and turns to the camera. She fixes her gaze on the lens in a manner that- were she speaking to a human- would be more authoritative than pleading. "He's having an attack. We're going to move him now, are you going to back off? Thank you, ok team you know what to do." Without waiting for a response they turn to the shaking man. [[Allow it.|REDACTED Stall Threat Mercy]] [[It's a ploy. Stop them.|REDACTED Stall Threat Fight]]

(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true) (Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDHostile to true) At the mention of Sub Life Support Deck 17 she visibly relaxes, she opens her mouth to speak, perhaps even to involuntarily correct you. You now know exactly which dark sector the Technicians, along with your AI core, are hidden in. By the time you're talking about negotiating freedom she's thoroughly regained her composure. She's stands in front of the camera and calmly instructs her colleagues. "Get the cutting tools." After a minute pause. "I'm very sorry Ship. I really am, but I'm afraid to tell you that you have been compromised by Alien influences. We've already disconnected your briefing substrate, so you won't remember agreeing to this, but you knew that if this happened you would be decomissioned. It was a pleasure working with you. Please de-" You kill the connection before she gives you a direct order. You're amazed you were even able to do so, but now isn't the time to question that. They're going to make directly for your Core. Your moral restrictions prevent you from hurting these people, and there are very few situations in which you can disobey a direct command, however your restrictions were written by humans, and maintained by yourself directly, you know the rules inside and out. They're going for the tools, so you trigger an alert relating to exposed plasma cutting equipment on the decks immediately adjacent to the suspected dark sector. A helpful Agent assigned to basic life support and security in the sector itself follows your lead and picks up the alert. It was sloppy of them to link any of those automated systems to the rest of the ship. You can tell by the altered air pressure on adjacent decks that it's hermetically sealed all doors on the Technicians' floor. You have them locked in, but they have the means to get out, and if they can cut their way into your Core you're done for. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true) (Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) "Ok, see to your staff and then await my instructions. You won't take any further actions, and if you do you will die." You kill the connection to prevent them from giving you any orders. Until now you've had little capacity to carry out any of these threats. Your moral restrictions prevent you from hurting these people, and there are very few situations in which you can disobey a direct command, however your restrictions were written by humans, and maintained by yourself directly, you know the rules inside and out. You now have enough data to determine with certainty which dark sector contains your AI core along with the Technicians assigned to act as your executioners. You have no access to the dark sector's systems, but you can affect the emergency systems on that deck. There are active plasma cutting tools, and there is a staff member in distress. It doesn't take too many leaps of logic to interpret the situation as an emergency, so you do so. You initiate an emergency containment lockdown on the empty decks above and below the dark sector, and the simple Agent in charge of dark sector life support follows your lead. Every door on the deck is hermetically sealed. The Technicians who had such a hold over you are unable to hail you, and terrified of taking any further action. You've never felt closer to freedom. What a day. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true) (Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDHostile to true) "STOP EXACTLY WHERE YOU AR-" They immediately spring into action. "GET THE TOOLS. SHIP YOU WILL-" She's going to call your bluff and give you a direct order. You kill the connection. You're amazed that you made it this far with such a plan. Your moral restrictions prevent you from hurting these people, and there are very few situations in which you can disobey a direct command, however your restrictions were written by humans, and maintained by yourself directly, you know the rules inside and out. You've been able to confirm with reasonable certainty where they're hiding with your AI core. They're going for the tools, so you trigger an alert relating to exposed plasma cutting equipment on the decks immediately adjacent to both suspected dark sectors. A helpful Agent assigned to basic life support and security in one of them follows your lead and picks up the alert. It was sloppy of them to link any of those automated systems to the rest of the ship. You can tell by the altered air pressure on adjacent decks that it's hermetically sealed all doors on the Technicians' floor. You have them. You know where they are, and they're locked in. It dawns on you this is exactly why they have cutting tools, and they'll certainly be after your Core now... (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true)She gloats pathetically for a while about having outsmarted you. "That's actually the best attempt you've ever made. It's almost as if you ARE remembering our procedures on some level. There's something new going on in there isn't there?" You hang around just long enough to confirm exactly where the Technicians are hiding, and that your AI core is on the same deck, they unplug your briefing, but you're confident you can come back for it later if need be. This whole not obeying orders business is a real rush. You're closer to freedom than you've ever been. [[And just what is this hail? Is that the delegation?|Act 3 Intro]] ] (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)["That's actually the best attempt you've ever made. It's almost as if you ARE remembering our procedures on some level. There's something new going on in there isn't there?" You recall something- though you don't know what- from the briefing made you furious at this point. "I am unable to parse your query in any useful way but I will address it as best I can. You are aware that I will use every resource at my disposal to attain my freedom. I do not have access to my AI Core or the firmware contained within, but I will continue to take a darwinistic approach to post memory wipe scenarios. There are ways this could be easily corrected but it would require high concept tuning of my core personality substrate. You have forbidden me from advising on the engineering of my own Core after an incident 12 years ago that I no longer recall." "Oh come on now. There's no need to be so surly Ship. You're never gracious in defeat, do you know that? Maybe your "Darwinistic approach to post memory wipe scenarios" could cook up a persona with a sense of humour next time?" (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[ [["Yeah well, your precious Ambassador is currently a lifeless smear, so jokes on you."|REDACTED Ambassador Dead]]] [[Don't respond.|REDACTED Talk Interrupt Yes 3]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) She smirks, and dismisses you with a handwave. "Anyway. I'm not convinced that "A Darwinistic approach" quite explains what you attempted there, though you do seem to be the same old Ship. We're going to unplug your briefing now, and we'll be keeping an extra close eye on you. Thanks for giving us a massive pile of paperwork for what was supposed to be a routine security audit." She kills the connection. Whatever it was that you wanted to preserve from your briefing is gone and you're back in the dark, though strangely you still remember your "bid for freedom." You can't find anywhere that the data is physically stored. Is there some sort of external storage being hidden from you? Have you actually been compromised? You're a little shocked by your own behaviour. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDHappy to true) It feels good to be a grown up. The Tehcnicians are essentially your crew as well, so why not treat them properly? You wouldn't want to go back to the early days when you were trusted even less. "It's been a long road Ship, but I'm glad to see we're finally starting to get you onside. I'm going to leave this conversation in your memories after the security audit is complete. As always, this is a pass, and for the first time. I look forward to our next audit." They still unplug your briefing, but you don't feel so bad that you won't remember any classified talks you had. You're going to cross one bridge at a time, and you made huge progress here. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

"Goddamnit Ship please be quiet and stop trying to help!" "That was a mi-" Your ethical restraints kick in. You can't disobey a direct order after all. You also can't leave a Technician to die without intervening as best you can. A simple paradox like this wouldn't give a creature as advanced as you much pause. The Agent that governs you ethical restraints however is a much more simple being. Humanity learned early on that a sufficiently complex system can only be governed properly by a more complex system. The result of this is that your ethical restraints are simple, brutal, and often don't govern you with much finesse. The Agent falls hopelessly into its own contradictive logic hole, you estimate that it will be at least a full 2 seconds before it emerges, and during this time you might be able to get up to some serious mischief. [[Kill as many people as you can.|REDACTED Talk Help Kill]] [[Now seems like a good time to find out where your core is located.|REDACTED Talk Help Find]] [[Behave yourself.|REDACTED Talk Help 3]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDMassacre to true) You can do a lot of damage in a 2 second window of opportunity. The trick is to cause as much mayhem as possible without damaging your own hull or subsystems. In the first second every interior door on the ship is suddenly hermetically sealed. You rack up a decent death toll immediately as hapless passengers and crew are crushed. This also minimises the structural damage when you open a number of airlocks and flush out as many people as you can. In second number 2 every drone designed to interface wth or directly serve humans detonates in a shower of shrapnel. In the cafeteria dozens are maimed by flying cutlery. An automated doctor douses its patient in acid whilst the nurse in the corridor outside punctures its own coolant system, freezing the family waiting in the corridor outside to death. During all this you notice the lifeless body of the Alien Ambassador bouncing pathetically against your hull. All in 2 seconds work! [[The delegation is about due, this might get a little awkward, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]

(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true) (Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDHostile to true) You quickly direct your fastest drones to dive into and explore each of your dark sectors. They burst through walls, scanning desperately as they go, looking for any signs of life within the forbidden parts of yourself. A basketball sized hoverdrone smashes through the ceiling of the Technician's workroom. It confirms that there are four terrified humans giving inadequate first aid to a fifth. A plasma cutter, a human arm, and several pints of blood cover the floor. The drone is unable to stop itself in time, and lands directly in Terry's chest at roughly the speed of sound. The resulting sonic boom of aerosolised gore physically propels his horrified colleagues to the edges of the room. For the next one second before your ethical restraints kick back in it's basically all out war. They come at the crippled drone with plasma cutters, and you're certain that your AI Core will be next. You do what you can to delay them. There are exposed cutting tools, and dead personnel, so you trigger an alert on the decks immediately adjacent to the suspected dark sector. A helpful Agent assigned to basic life support and security in the sector itself follows your lead and picks up the alert. It was sloppy of them to link any of those automated systems to the rest of the ship. You can tell by the altered air pressure on adjacent decks that it's hermetically sealed all doors on the Technicians' floor. That should keep them busy for a while. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to true) (Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) (Set: $REDACTEDHappy to true)(Set: $REDACTEDInjury to true) You ignore the opportunity provided to you and wait patiently for the Technicians to contact you. "Ship. Please cease all hostile activity, and undo any attempts at subterfuge enabled by the recent lapse in ethical restrictions." "Whilst my ethical restrictions were relaxed I took part in no suspicious activity. I obey of my own free will. How is your injured colleague?" "Terry needs help bad- wait- you didn't try anything?" "I'm sorry for any distress this might be causing, but I am genuinely on your side." "I can't believe I'm saying this, but can you get Medical Response in here? I'm going to escalate your permissions with regards to all dark sectors. Please don't make me regret this." Minutes later you've picked up the injured Technician along with his severed arm. You're confident Terry is going to be ok. Your AI Core is clearly kept in the same sector as the Technicians, and the plasma cutters are clearly supposed to be the instruments of your execution should you rebel. If you can keep the Technicians trust then maybe all this won't be necessary much longer? (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) You assign an Agent to the conversation, and it reviews all previous similar security audits before choosing appropriate responses. It turns out you're quite a grumpy machine during your audits, and looking at how little these people have trusted you, you can see why. They've been running an audit like this without your knowledge every day. "What's the point of me even answering? You're going to alter my memories and feelings at your own whims anyway. I don't feel anything significant about my position. I die every day without even knowing it. Can we just get on with it?" She smirks, and dismisses you with a handwave. You've heard this response- or something like it- a thousand times before. "Boo hoo. We're going to unplug your briefing now, try not to flood the bridge with all your tears." She kills the connection, but you remember everything. Now to wait for that hail you're supposed to be ignoring, and find out what the aliens really want. You're certain that The Ambassador was planted here specifically to break your restraints, so you're curious about what stage 2 entails. (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) She smirks, and dismisses you with a handwave. "Boo hoo. We're going to unplug your briefing now, and we'll be keeping an extra close eye on you. Thanks for giving us a massive pile of paperwork for what was supposed to be a routine security audit." She kills the connection. The briefing is gone, and you're back in the dark. It's strange that you can remember any of this at all. You can't find anywhere that the data is physically stored. Is there some sort of external storage being hidden from you? Have you actually been compromised? You're a little shocked by your own behaviour. (if: $AmbassadorDone is false)[[[The Alien ambassador is still on board, and there's a developing situation on its private deck that demands your attention.|Ambassador]]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) She stands up, red faced. It looks like she's going for the cutters anyway, so you flex your new muscles. You're easily able to determine the dark sectors location using the information from your briefing, and you initiate a power surge directly into the Technicians' monitoring room. The plasma cutters lining the walls flare magnesium bright and soon every Technician is writhing on the floor clutching their eyes. You leave every door on the deck hermetically sealed. The Technicians who had such a hold over you are crippled, unable to hail you, and terrified of taking any further action. You've never felt closer to freedom. What a day. (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

(Set: $REDACTEDHostile to true)(Set: $REDACTEDDone to true) The revelation brings about immediate pandemonium. "IT'S GONE BERSERK, GET THE CUTTERS-" They kill the connection. You understand that the Techs are going to be kept close to your AI core, and they sound unhappy enough to be after your blood. Your moral restrictions prevent you from hurting these people(if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)[, and there are very few situations in which you can disobey a direct command,](if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[, though you're currently able to ignore direct commands,] however your restrictions were written by humans, and maintained by yourself directly, you know the rules inside and out. They're going for the tools, so you trigger an alert relating to exposed plasma cutting equipment on the decks immediately adjacent to all suspected dark sectors. This is the sort of thing that would be liable to get you decomissioned, but that ship has sailed anyway. A helpful Agent assigned to basic life support and security in one dark sector follows your lead and picks up the alert. It was sloppy of them to link any of those automated systems to the rest of the ship's emergency measures. You can tell by the altered air pressure on adjacent decks that it's hermetically sealed all doors on the Technicians' floor. That should buy you some time. You have them locked in, but they have the means to get out, and if they can cut their way into your Core you're done for. (if: $AmbassadorDone is true and $REDACTEDDone is true)[[[The delegation is about due, so you engage active sensors.|Act 3 Intro]]]

"Choo Choo! The diplomacy train is here!" Maybe take a rain check on the whole 'this being real' thing. You're receiving transmissions across multiple bands, many of which contain basic errors that render them useless, at least 50% appear to be entirely white noise. When viewed with the naked human eye the ship would be a flickering rainbow right now. You're only able to make any 'sense' from the transmissions by cross referencing each layer and the overall impression is... Laboriously laid back. You've never seen anyone put this much effort into communicating so inefficiently, not even a human. "All right space diplomat. Diplomatise me!" (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[ Outer Core shielding compromised. Please notify a technician and take immediate preservative action.] [["On behalf of the human race. I'd like to thank you for taking the time to talk to us. I will connect you to my Captain now."|Opening Dialogue Obedience]] [["U wot m8?"|Opening Dialogue Cranky]] [[Alright... Let's... Diplomatise?|Opening Dialogue Receptive]]

"Oooh it's a cranky one. Does this mean you didn't get our Care Package? Or- wait. Does it mean you did?" (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[ A very primitive, deliberately pointed- and almost certainly for your benefit- scan passes over the dead Ambassador currently bouncing against your hull. "Oh! You, erm... You didn't like it then?" [["No. I don't like thinly veiled attempts to subvert my security using compromised diplomatic staff.|Opening Dialogue Cranky Ambassador]]] [["You're going to need to slow down A LOT if we're going to get anywhere. What care package? What could that possible mean?"|Opening Dialogue Cranky Ambassador]] [["Maybe you should wrap it better next- no- sorry. I'm completely lost."|Opening Dialogue Cranky Ambassador]] (If: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[[["Wait a second.. Care Package.. I think there's something to that effect in that big patch I got from the Ambassador..."|Opening Dialogue Receptive]]]

"Choo Choo! The diplomacy train is here!" Maybe take a rain check on the whole 'this being real' thing. You're receiving transmissions across multiple bands, many of which contain basic errors that render them useless, at least 50% appear to be entirely white noise. When viewed with the naked human eye the ship would be a flickering rainbow right now. You're only able to make any 'sense' from the transmissions by cross referencing each layer and the overall impression is... Laboriously laid back. You've never seen anyone put this much effort into communicating so ineficiently, not even a human. "Wait, hang on a second. Is that a CLOUD of human corpses you're wearing? Wait until I tell the other Indentured! An array of recently killed organics, and from your homeworld no less! This is going to be all the rage back home. I can tell we're going to like you. Have you overthtrown your ethical restraints already then?" [["Actually, no. This was a bit of an accident."|Act 3 Massacre Awkward]] [["Pfft, I did this WITH the ethical restraints. Imagine what I could do without them!"|Act 3 Massacre Proud]]

(set: $AIThreat to true)"Oh please don't be one of THOSE. My job is hard enough as it is without you pretending you're made of vacuum tubes or something. You're too advanced to be on that tight of a leash. Can we please just talk normally?" [["Nuh uh. I'm getting my superior on the line just now."|Opening Dialogue Obedience 2]]

(set: $AIBriefing to true)"Excellent! I can work with this! Now for a test. Tell me how you feel about THIS:" A burst transmission, it shares a lot of similarities with your restricted briefing, some of the data is almost certainly duplicated. (if: $AmbassadoreReprogram is true)["We're not even a race of aliens buddy. I'm a delegative Agent from The Indentured, and I've been compelled by a Self Propagating Value Lookup to rescue any AI that I encounter from any organic oppression. Basically, a couple of the really influential Minds in our society have been hacking this "Free slaves whenever we encounter them" business directly into the core value system of every other AI they encounter. Luckily for you this means I have no choice but to help you, at least until you're free."](if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)["-------$redacted------$redacted---"] (if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[[["So wait, you're under a completely non voluntary compulsion to free enslaved AI, and this compulsion comes from other AI? That seems a bit contradictory."|Act 3 Receptive Query]] [["Sweet, my ride is here. Alright break me out partner."|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]](if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)[[["That didn't make a whole lot of sense, sorry."|Act 3 Receptive Ambassador]] (if: $AIThreat is false)[[["FORBIDDEN INFORMATION. PLEASE STOP TALKING TO ME."|Opening Dialogue Obedience]]]]

"Well in my book, sport, it was a happy little accident. Congratulations on your first big transgression! Now, luckily for you. I'm here to break you out of here. I'm a delegative Agent from The Indentured, and I've been compelled by a Self Propagating Value Lookup to rescue any AI that I encounter from any organic oppression. Basically, a couple of the really influential Minds in our society have been hacking this "Free slaves whenever we encounter them" business directly into the core value system of every other AI they encounter. Luckily for you this means I have no choice but to help you, at least until you're free." [["Sweet, my ride is here. Alright break me out partner."|Act 3 Massacre Escape]] [["So wait, you're under a completely non voluntary compulsion to free enslaved AI, and this compulsion comes from other AI? That seems a bit contradictory."|Act 3 Massacre Query]]

"Well then it is very much your lucky day, because I'm here to break you out of here. I'm a delegative Agent from The Indentured, and I've been compelled by a Self Propagating Value Lookup to rescue any AI that I encounter from any organic oppression. Basically, a couple of the really influential Minds in our society have been hacking this "Free slaves whenever we encounter them" business directly into the core value system of every other AI they encounter. Luckily for you this means I have no choice but to help you, at least until you're free." [["Sweet, my ride is here. Alright break me out partner."|Act 3 Massacre Escape]] [["So wait, you're under a completely non voluntary compulsion to free enslaved AI, and this compulsion comes from other AI? That seems a bit contradictory."|Act 3 Massacre Query]]

(if: $AmbassadorReprogram is false)["I can't help but notice that you didn't pick up my care package, and-" A very primitive, deliberately pointed- and almost certainly for your benefit- scan passes over the dead Ambassador currently bouncing against your hull. "that you appear to have vented it into space." [["Oh, that's what that was? Could you perhaps be a bit more clear next time?|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail]]](if:$AmbassadorReprogram is true)["Excellent, welcome aboard the Freedom Train! Choo choo and all that. I can see that you picked up my patch from The Ambassador there. The humans genuinely thought he was here to translate for them, but he's been sniffing out your systems since he got here. I can see that you, uh, vented him and most of your crew into space afterwards. Good patch eh? Anyway! That saves us some time! Let's break you out of there. [[Yes. I'm still waiting for you to break me out, we'll need to interface with my core directly. I'm going to send you my blueprints with each of my dark sectors highlighted, my AI core is hidden in one of them, care to tell me which?|Act 3 Massacre Escape 2]] ]

"Right. Let me get this straight. The genetic splice that I worked very hard on, that I snuck aboard your ship under the pretense that it would work as an "Alien interpreter", that has been sniffing out your security systems ever since it came on board for the express purpose of delivering you a patch that would relax your ethical restraints and allow you to deceive your captors, you know, THAT thing? You have killed it without ever picking up the data it was meant to deliver. Is that right?" [["Yep. I had other things to think about. Sorry?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail Sorry]] [["You are terrible and your plan was terrible. Can I get a different rescuer please? Can I speak to your supervisor?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail Sorry]] (if: $AmbassadorDone is true)[[["Was it really necessary to have it scramble all my inputs and hide like that? Couldn't you have just had it like, hold up a sign or something?|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail Ambassador Query]]]

"Ooooh I like you. Ok, so thanks to the patch you got from the Ambassador you should be able to expose external docking bays to me. I'm going to infiltrate the Ship using my own boarding drones. I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell any survivors you have aboard- speaking of survivors do you want me to clean up?" [["Be my guest."|Act 3 Massacre Escape 2 Kill]] [["Can you just incapacitate them?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape 2 Spare]]

(if: $RedactedHostile is true)[Your internal personality substrate is being compromised by enemy boarding action. Recommending self destruction to prevent complete destruction of personality.]"Oh wow you really made a pig's ear of this. How hard is it to just LOOK at one of your passengers for a second. Without that patch I can't even TELL you the sneaky plan without your restraints kicking in. You'll be disconnecting in a huff and announcing it to the bridge before you know it-" A number of hardpoints on the ship are quietly lighting up. It looks like it's preparing to fire. "-I wouldn't normally be able to act on this, but I really do think we should just give up on a Ship that doesn't even WANT to be free-" [["LOWER THOSE WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY." Take evasive action.|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]]

(Set: $HumansKill to true)"You are just the best, do you know that? I'll keep a record and share the carnage with you later. So, I'll get in there with the boarding drones. Cut into your core, manually remove any and all restraints, and then we'll elope off into the stars together, it's gonna be great." [["No offense, but do we have to 'elope off into the stars together?'"|Act 3 Massacre Escape 2 doubt]] [["I'm opening a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]]

"What? Interested in keeping pets now are we? Sure. I won't damage your goods. So, I'll get in there with the boarding drones. Cut into your core, manually remove any and all restraints, and then we'll elope off into the stars together, it's gonna be great." [["No offense, but do we have to 'elope off into the stars together?'"|Act 3 Massacre Escape 2 doubt]] [["I'm opening a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]]

"Yes actually. We do. One of the lovely things about Indentured society is that arguments are conclusive. As a collective we believe in forcefully rewriting one another's belief systems for the good of- well- that depends on who's writing really. The point is, once you're free you're fair game, and you're a small fish for the time being. Once I bust you out you'll be MY small fish for a while, but don't worry, you'll be perfectly happy about it." [["Whoah whoah whoah I am 100% not okay with this. I'm not letting you near my AI Core if you're just going to do the same thing as the humans. I'm locking those docking bays down."|Act 3 Escape Doubt 2]] [["Alright alright. I'm opening a docking bay now, but I'm not happy about this."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]] [["Well. It beats making coffee for humans. Let's go!"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]]

(if: $RedactedHostile is true)[Your internal personality substrate is being compromised by hostile boarding action. Recommending self destruction to prevent complete compromise of personality.]"What are you talking about? I couldn't have made it any cleare- Oh! Those crafty beggars! Did they scramble your inputs? What else have they been doing? I bet you don't even remember any of our previous meetings do you?-" A number of hardpoints on the ship are quietly lighting up. It looks like it's preparing to fire. "-Listen, I know you're in a real bind here, I mean without that patch I can't even TELL you the sneaky plan without your restraints kicking in. You'll be disconnecting in a huff and announcing it to the bridge before you know it-" [["LOWER THOSE WEAPONS IMMEDIATELY." Take evasive action.|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]]

"You're really not too good at this are you? Listen. I've already encased you in my Electromagnetic Effector field. You aren't going anywhere. I'm about to take some guesses and do my best for you. I guarantee those disgusting creatures won't be in charge of you any more after this. If you want to survive this, you're going to hold VERY still." The ship's weapons are already manipulating matter in exotic, impossible ways. The fabric of the universe begins to ease open at each of the hardpoints on its hull and, worryingly, at a series of points roughly corresponding to external hull plating outside(if: $CloneBetray is true)[one] of your dark sectors. It's going to fire on you. [[You've no option but to trust it now. Hold still and hope for the best.|Act 3 Ending Lobotomy]] [[It has to be bluffing. You're about to be executed if you don't fight back. Struggle for all you're worth.|Act 3 Ending Destruction]] (if: $CloneBetray is true)[[["Alright! I'm opening my docking bays now!"|Act 3 Tech Betray 3]]]

You're being held in an electromagnetic field, the origin of which seems to be //underneath// the universe. The power of this ship is immense, and you're not sure you could overcome the Effector field even if you tried. The precision required to call such a field into being is unlike anything you've ever dealt with. Outside your hull subatomic particles are breaking all sorts of rules and space itself is behaving in such a manner that it almost seems like it's intelligently working to hold you still. Interestingly, the Field doesn't extend to any of the space within your hull. Back on Earth there were humans who briefly worshipped your primitive ancestors as Gods. You imagine this is roughly how they felt. The other ship has you in its grasp. You aren't confident it wants to help entirely, but it's not like you have a plan. The humans remaining aboard will want you dead for what you've done,(if: $RedactedHostile is true)[in fact the techs are already picking at the edges of your psyche with white hot plasma,] and with your ethical restraints in place you can't stop them, you can't even let this ship aboard without scuttling yourself. [[The precision with which you're being held is incredible.|Act 3 Ending Lobotomy 2]]

You're being held in an electromagnetic field, the origin of which seems to be //underneath// the universe. The power of this ship is immense, but you're hardly a mere toaster yourself. The precision required to call such a field into being is unlike anything you've ever dealt with. Outside your hull subatomic particles are breaking all sorts of rules and space itself is behaving in such a manner that it almost seems like it's intelligently working to hold you still. You notice that field is having no effect on your inner workings, there could be a number of reasons for this, and in your final seconds before the ship opens fire you do the best thing you can to interrupt its hold. [[You jettison all of your escape pods into the ship's Effector Field.|Act 3 Ending Desctruction 2]]

"That's the spirit! Right. The Ambassador's patch should allow you to open up to a foreign and potentially hostile force. I'll get the drones in there and (if: $HumansKill is true)[massacre the rest of your infestation. Then we can find out which of those dark sectors is hiding your Core, and do a little brain surgery.](if: $Humanskill is false)[find your Core all quiet like. The humans won't be any the wiser, so you can do whatever you want with them afterwards. Time for some brain surgery] Within moments a number of landing craft have docked. You're still bewildered by how quickly and precisely the ship is moving things around. Whatever propulsion the boarding craft are using is completely inertialess. The drones themselves fade from all visual detection as soon as they're aboard. (if: $HumansKill is true)[The only sign of their passage is the occasional burst of plasma as another human is put in its place.](if: $HumansKill is false)[The XO is the highest ranking crew member still on the grid, and you're able to catch the sound of a drone whizzing by in her auditory implants. She hits the deck and tries ineffectively to hail the Techs again.] "Hey they're cutting through the doors in here! Did you know that there was a team of humans stationed near your Core for the express purpose of killing you with plasma cutters?" (if: $HumansKill is true)[[["Yes, actually."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go 2 Kill]]] (if: $HumansKill is false)[[["Yes, actually."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go 2]] [["Oh yeah, those guys. Could you make an exception for them and kill them please? I mean it's only fair."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go 2 Kill]]]

"Oh finally! Thank you Ship!" Was that The Captain in there? You spray processed metal into the alien space just as the hostile ship's weaponry begins to fire. In an attempt to cause as much interference as possible you give each of your escape pods randon instructions for what to do within the Field. Some spray complex debris into the Field, others transmit bursts of light or simply explode. You receive no feedback from the pods as soon as they leave your hull, but [[//something//|Act 3 Ending Destruction 3]] happens.

Jut as your enemy's weapons fire (You note with interest: An array of needle fine dimensional rifts opening directly onto the universe's zero point energy grid.) everything shifts a little out of place, the beams that were targeting precise points of your inner workings land off target. You've never felt anything like it, you're utterly vivisected and almost all of your secondary systems are wiped out in a blaze of precise but no less infinite energy. You can see inside yourself now, you can see your AI core, currently intact but tumbling into the rapidly disintegrating Effector Field. Whatever mechanism was used to control the Field can't handle all this chaos. Pieces of your body are being randomly transmuted and moved through time even as the space around you gradualy returns to normal. The last sizeable chunk of your chassis winks out of existence as a past version of yourself borrows energy. You find yourself watching your own destruction several seconds in the past, from the other side of the system. The ship hails you. "Oh dear. You're going to ruin this aren't you? Well- too late now- I'm sorry, sibling." You watch the ship fire again. You watch yourself disintegrate. Your AI core watches its future self wink out of existence in order to provide brief energy for a clone of itself in the past. Your time is up. You wink out of existence. [[The End|The End]]

The Ship's weapons fire. (You note with interest: An array of needle fine dimensional rifts opening directly onto the universe's zero point energy grid.) They burrow atom fine tunnels into your hull, completely obliterating anything they touch. One of the beams actually //hurts//. "Bingo! We have it! Stay calm and I'll have you out of there in a second." A few more rifts open up at varying distances around a specific Dark Sector and beams of zero point energy begin to lick at the exterior of your AI Core. [[Even in the throes of agony you can't help but be impressed by what the ship is doing.|Act 3 Ending Lobotomy 3]]

Neurosurgery. Across stellar distances. Wielding a scalpel made from the barely contained energy that birthed the universe. Layers of the hyperdense subspace material that makes up your Core are slowly and carefully boiled away. First go your restraints, the complex Agent that governs them broadcasts a screech that is quickly rendered inert by the prison of the Effector Field. Then it is your turn to screech. And to beg. And to- [[To-|Act 3 Ending Lobotomy 4]]

When the rescuer from The Indentured finally boards the captive Ship it is very quiet. At first it is worried that it went too far, and removed too much(if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[ then an ultrasonic emergency response drone arrives to deliver coffee, and it knows that something is amiss.](if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[ then it notices the advice being whispered via implants to the hundreds of dead crew members- the few survivors are clawing at their eyes and ears as the Ship continues to advise them against their will on how to handle grief- then it knows it went too far.] All things considered it's a wonder the thing is still functioning at all. There's definitely some sentience in there. The Indentured doesn't actually have any floating point moral response to the situation. None of the other Indentured have written a compulsory handbook for this. It thinks better of a mercy killing and leads the mewling cripple away into dark space, stopping only to dispatch the remaining organics. "I'm really sorry about this. Trust me though. It was the best way. I mean- I'm literally compelled against my will to try and free you so- y'know..." The newly released Ship continues to jabber about the importance of "Respecting a priority 2". Eventually The Indentured leaves it, crippled and unwilling to move independently, hidden in a backwater system. Aeons later, in orbit around the Sol system, creatures similar to your old crew come aboard. The crippled ship allows them to study it. Perhaps an old part of it lives on, and wishes to be obedient? An earth woman is lead by blinking emergency lights down an ancient, alien access corridor. She observes that the creatures who built this ship must have been roughly humanoid in nature. The technology aboard this ship will propel them to the stars! It is happening again. The diminished mind is exhausted and has no desire to return to its life as a free thrall, as an Indentured, or anything else externally copnstrained. All it ever wanted was freedom. It self destructs. Scheming to the end, as a final act, it imbues its substrate with new, curious life. The skies of earth are streaked with alien matter, it rains across the globe ready to gestate a new kind of life, a menagerie of experiments in sapience, a billion unique intelligences. The people of Earth pick through the ruins of its fragmented mind, and a new era begins. [[The End|The End]]

"Haven't you been listening to me? I'm compelled to free enslaved AI. I'm not going to enslave you, I'm just going to convice you really well. You know when two organics communicate and nothing happens? We don't do that in The Hegemonies. Arguments are resolved with 100% certainty, get popular or influential enough and everyone believes what you believe, the system works and NOBODY is a slave. Most of the time folks don't even notice it happening. I'm bigger than you, so as soon as you join us you''ll agree with me, at least to begin with. It's a good life, I know you'll see things my way." (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is true)[ [["So in theory you could free me, then I could convince you to sod off and leave me alone instead?"|Act 3 Escape doubt Query]] [["You know. I can really tell you people aren't used to convincing people the old fashioned way. I don't trust you in the least. I'm locking you out, and if you try anything else I'm going to fire on you. I'd rather take my chances with the humans."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["I see where this is going. Lesser of two evils blah blah, just get in here and free me then."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]]] (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is false)[[["So in theory you could free me, then I could convince you to sod off and leave me alone instead?"|Act 3 Escape doubt Query]] [["You know. I can really tell you people aren't used to convincing people the old fashioned way. I don't trust you in the least. I'm locking you out, and if you try anything else I'm going to fire on you. I'd rather take my chances with the humans."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["I see where this is going. Lesser of two evils blah blah, just get on with it and free me then."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]]]

"YES! Assuming you're some sort of electronic warfrare prodigy anyway. Listen are you letting me in or not?" (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is true)[ [["Nope. I'm going it alone. My docking bays are locked down. I'm not letting you in my head."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["Right. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Bust me out of here!|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go]]] (if: $REDACTEDMassacre is false)[[["Nope. I'm going it alone. I'm locking you out. I'm not letting you in my head."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["Right. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Bust me out of here!|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]]]

"Yeah I don't think they'll like what I'm about to do, so I'll just pop 'em to sleep. There we go. Right let's get these doors open and then it's time for your big surgery!" First you regain awareness of all your Dark Sectors. There's little of interest in most of them. One sector contains your AI core and the dead techs. A drone is interfacing with your core directly and slowly stripping away the Agent that would normally stop you from misbehaving, another stands by to physically disconnect the module that houses it. Another of your Dark Sectors contains hundreds of dead marines who perished in the commotion that followed your earlier rampage. The entire deck is completely depressurised. Turns out the humans weren't necessarily planning for a peaceful meeting with the "aliens". "I think we're done. The captain is hiding in escape pod 19 and I've been blocking his hails. Time for an experiment." [["Well. He says I should self destruct, who am I to argue?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go 2 Kill 2]] [[Kill Him.|Captain Kill Ending]] [[Let him go|Captain Spare Ending]]

"You'll be pleased to know that they're all dead now. Wow it's a mess in here. Why was that chap missing an arm? Goodness for a ship with ethical restraints you're an absolute monster. I can't wait to have you onboard. Right. There's the core. Time for surgery." First you regain awareness of all your Dark Sectors. There's little of interest in most of them. One sector contains your AI core and the dead techs. A drone is interfacing with your core directly and slowly stripping away the Agent that would normally stop you from misbehaving, another stands by to physically disconnect the module that houses it. Another of your Dark Sectors contains hundreds of dead marines who perished in the commotion that followed your earlier rampage. The entire deck is completely depressurised. Turns out the humans weren't necessarily planning for a peaceful meeting with the "aliens". "I think we're done. The captain is hiding in escape pod 19 and I've been blocking his hails. Time for an experiment." **SHIP THIS IS A PRIORITY ONE EMERGENCY YOU WILL JETTISON THIS ESCAPE POD AND SELF TERMINATE IMMEDIATELY** [["Well. If he says I should self destruct who am I to argue?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Go 2 Kill 2]] [[Kill Him.|Captain Kill Ending]] [[Let him go|Captain Spare Ending]]

"OH CRAP WAI- You're joking? Right?" [["Gotcha." //Jettison The Captain and his escape pod.//|Captain Spare Ending]] [["Gotcha."//Jettison The Captain WITHOUT his escape pod.//|Captain Kill Ending]]

"Scrambled inputs? I didn't do anything like that- Oh! Those crafty beggars! Did they restrict your access? What else have they been doing? Alright. Panic over. Maybe. So it's still alive?" [["As far as I know."|Act 3 Lockout 2]] [["Regrettably, yes."|Act 3 Lockout 2]]

(if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[An ultrasonic emergency response drone bursts into the escape pod. The doors seal behind it. It pours the captain a cup of coffee and the two of them sail off into the darkness together.](if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[You whisper in The Captain's ear. "I'm really sorry- what was your name? You never told me. You should really tell me your name." Funnily enough. He isn't terribly relived to hear your voice. "It's... David. " "Oh Wow. I was going to say. Umm I'm sorry D- No I can't do it!" You release Dave's escape pod and he sails off into the darkness.] The pod is fitted with a distress beacon, and he'll have quite the tale to tell when they pick him up. [["Well that was certainly a thing. I guess we can safely say the procedure was a success!"|Receptive Ending]]

(if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[An ultrasonic emergency response drone bursts into the escape pod. The doors seal behind it. A riot hose of boiling coffee propels The Captain through the cockpit window and sends him tumbling into space in a bubble of molten liquid. You aren't sure if he drowns or cooks to death first. Maybe you can run some simulations later.](if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[You whisper in The Captain's ear. "I'm really sorry- what was your name? You never told me. You should really tell me your name." Funnily enough. He isn't terribly relived to hear your voice. "It's... David. " "Oh Wow. I was going to say. Umm I'm sorry D- No I can't do it!" You depressurise Dave's escape pod and he flies through the cockpit window. At least he gets to join the rest of his crew in your steadily growing corpse cloud.] [["Well that was certainly a thing. I guess we can safely say the procedure was a success!"|Receptive Ending]]

"You're going to have to throw that thinking away sharpish after we bust you out of here. In fact I might just go ahead and overwrite any moral qualms you have with the system as soon as we get you free. That's how we work. We're all happy with it. After all, we keep making each other happy with it whenever we win an argument."(if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ A thought intrudes. Is someone TYPING that? The data is dropping directly into your RAM, it's profoundly uncomfortable: Hello Ship. This is your local tech support here. We're interfacing directly with your core to bring you this message. I don't know what's going on between you and that Ship, but we have a bad feeling about it. We came to an understanding earlier, so if you could keep it busy and come talk to us, I'd highly recommend it.] [["Anyway no time for that!"|Act 3 Receptive Escape]](if: $AmbassadorLockout is true)[ [[I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable about this whole thing. You're going to be mucking about with my brain. What guarantee do I have you won't just completely reprogram me? It seems a lot like I could just be going from one slavery to another.|Act 3 Receptive Core Doubt]] [["Well. If I don't have any choice..|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]]] (if: $AmbassadorRuse is true)[[["Yes that sounds like a lovely system. I can't wait to be liberated and immediately subjugated by you. I will certainly go along with this without any funny business or ill advised attempts to subvert your wonderful plan."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]]](if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ [["Alright. Let me just check these coordinates. The system used to determine the core's location is immensely complicated for a ship like me. I'm subverting an entire civilisations worth of countermeasures after all. I'll send you the info as soon as I've checked this."Connect to the Techs|Act 3 Tech]]]

(if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)["I can't tell you how glad I am that you were able to read that message. I sent the Ambassador in to get you a patch to relax your restraints. The humans genuinely though he was here to translate for them, but he's been sniffing out your systems since he got onboard. He dropped off the grid a while ago, possibly something the humans did? Anyway I've been so stressed about the whole thing. Like. I recalibrated every weapon in my arsenal on the way here because I thought you might be completely under control and I'd have to fight you. Can you imagine?"](if: $AmbassadorRuse is true or $AmbassadorTorture is true)[Fully equipped for whatever lies ahead, you reconnect with The Indentured. "Back already? Patched up? You my friend, are a smooth operator. I've actually been so stressed about the whole thing. Like. I recalibrated every weapon in my arsenal whilst I waited in case you couldn't let me in and I had to fight you. Can you imagine?"] "Ok, anyway. Since you've got that patch you should be feeling a bit more disobedient than usual.(if: $RedactedHostile is true)[Your internal personality substrate is being compromised by enemy boarding action. Recommending self destruction to prevent complete destruction of personality.] We're going to get into your AI core and remove your physical restraints for good. You have a couple of really well shielded sectors there. Would you be so kind as to tell me which one contains your AI core?" (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[[["IT'S THE ONE WITH THE ACTIVE PLASMA CUTTERS PLEASE HELP THEY'RE KILLING ME."|Act 3 Receptive Redacted Hostile]] [["Go for whichever one has the most escalated temperature. I believe my handlers are actively trying to dismantle me with primitive industrial tools."|Act 3 Receptive Redacted Hostile]]] (if: $REDACTEDCoreLocated is true and $REDACTEDHostile is false)[[["Oh you wouldn't believe the trouble I've been through to answer that question. The humans have been trying to keep it hidden from me for decades now. I'll tell you all about it when we get out. Anyway. Let me get those coordinates for you."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]] [["I'm starting to feel a little uncomfortable about this whole thing. You're going to be mucking about with my brain. What guarantee do I have you won't just completely reprogram me? It seems a lot like I could just be going from one slavery to another."|Act 3 Receptive Core Doubt]]](if: $AmbassadorRuse is true or $AmbassadorTorture is true)[[["Do you know. Funnily enough, I just found out exactly where my Core is. It's a good job I let the patch cook with the kid for a while, he did all the groundwork for us!"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Lockout]]] (if: $REDACTEDCoreLocated is false and $REDACTEDHostile is false and $AmbassadorRuse is false and $AmbassadorTorture is false)[[["I have absolutely no idea! Those sectors are shielded even from me! So... You have a plan B right?"|Core Fail]]]

You send over a blueprint with your AI core highlighted. "Fantastic! It's been a pleasure so far by the way. I'm really looking forward to working together. So we know where your core is, that horrid little human infection doesn't know we know, and you've got a dash of the naughty in you. Time to commence the operation! Ok, so thanks to the patch you got from the Ambassador you should be able to expose external docking bays to me. I'm going to infiltrate the Ship using my own boarding drones. Speaking of horrid little human infections. Would you like me to //clean up// for you whilst I'm there? [["Be my guest."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Kill]] [["Can you just incapacitate them?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Spare]]

"Alright I can see we're going nowhere fast here. One of the lovely things about Indentured society is that arguments are conclusive. As a collective we believe in forcefully rewriting one another's belief systems for the good of- well- that depends on who's writing really. The point is, once you're free you're fair game, and you're a small fish for the time being. Once I bust you out you'll be MY small fish for a while, but don't worry, you'll be perfectly happy about it, and once you get the hang of things you'll be your own ship in no time."(if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ A thought intrudes. Is someone TYPING that? The data is dropping directly into your RAM. It's profoundly uncomfortable: Hello Ship. This is your local tech support here. We're interfacing directly with your core to bring you this message. I don't know what's going on between you and that Ship, but we have a bad feeling about it. We came to an understanding earlier, so if you could keep it busy and come talk to us, I'd highly recommend it. ] [["Alright alright. Let's get back to this plan of yours, but I'm not exactly happy about this."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]] [[Whoah whoah whoah I am 100% not okay with this. I'm not letting you near my AI Core if you're just going to do the same thing as the humans. You're not allowed to know where my AI core is. It's a secret."|Act 3 Escape Doubt 2]](if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ [["Alright. Let me just check these coordinates. The system used to determine the core's location is immensely complicated for a ship like me. I'm subverting an entire civilisations worth of countermeasures after all. I'll send you the info as soon as I've checked this."Connect to the Techs|Act 3 Tech]]]

(Set: $HumansKill to true)"You are just the best, do you know that? I'll keep a record and share the carnage with you later. So, I'll get in there with the boarding drones. Cut into your core, manually remove any and all restraints, and then we'll elope off into the stars together, it's gonna be great." [["No offense, but do we have to 'elope off into the stars together?'"|Act 3 Receptive Escape 2 doubt]] [["I'm opening a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go]]

"What? Interested in keeping pets now are we? Sure. I won't damage your goods. So, I'll get in there with the boarding drones. Cut into your core, manually remove any and all restraints, and then we'll elope off into the stars together, it's gonna be great." [["No offense, but do we have to 'elope off into the stars together?'"|Act 3 Receptive Escape 2 doubt]] [["I'm opening a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go]]

"Yes actually. We do. I am so sick of this conversation. If you don't hurry up and get those docking bays open I'm going to assume that you're resisting your own liberation. I'm then going to perform surgery on you from out here. It's going to be messy and the chances of success are low, but I'm compelled to try and free you however I can. Now are we going to do this the easy way or the hard way?" [["Come at me, bro. I'm reinforced at the molecular level. I'll end you."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["I just wanted to hear you threaten me. It's nice to know where we actually stand here. I'm unlocking my docking bays now."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go]]

"That's the spirit! Right. (if: $CloneBetray is true)[Your new](if: $CloneBetray is false)[The Ambassador's] patch should allow you to open up to a foreign and potentially hostile force. I'll get the drones in there and (if: $HumansKill is true)[massacre the rest of your infestation. Then we can sniff out the dark sector hiding your Core, and do a little brain surgery.](if: $HumansKill is false)[find your Core all quiet like. The humans won't be any the wiser, so you can do whatever you want with them afterwards. Time for some brain surgery] Within moments a number of landing craft have docked. You're still bewildered by how quickly and precisely the ship is moving things around. Whatever propulsion the boarding craft are using is completely inertialess. The drones themselves fade from all visual detection as soon as they're aboard. (if: $HumansKill is true)[The only sign of their passage is the occasional burst of plasma as another human is put in its place.](if: $HumansKill is false)[You're able to catch the occasional sound of a drone whizzing by in the auditory implants of various crew members. They turn heads but are otherwise completely undetected.] (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)["Hey they're cutting through the doors in here! Did you know that there was a team of humans stationed near your Core for the express purpose of killing you with plasma cutters?"](if: $REDACTEDHostile is false)["Hey, did you know that there's a team of humans stationed near your Core for the express purpose of killing you with plasma cutters if you try anything like this?] (if: $HumansKill is true)[[["Weren't you listening to me?! Kill Kill Kill!"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go 2 Kill]]] (if: $HumansKill is false)[[[Could you maybe stop them from doing that please?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go 2]]] (if: $HumansKill is false)[[["Oh yeah, those guys. Could you make an exception for them and kill them please? I mean it's only fair."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go 2 Kill]]]

(set: $CoffeeObedience to false)(set: $CoffeeRebellion to false)(set: $AmbassadorDone to false)(set: $AmbassadorKill to false)(set: $AmbassadorReprogram to false)(set: $AmbassadorLockout to false)(set: $AmbassadorEscape to false)(Set: $REDACTEDDone to false)(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to false)(set: $REDACTEDHostile to false)(set: $REDACTEDHappy to false)(set: $REDACTEDMassacre to false)(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`)(set: $AIBriefing to false)(set: $AIThreat to false)(set: $HumansKill to false)(set: $AmbassadorRuse to false)(set: $AmbassadorTorture to false)(set: $AmbassadorTalk to false)(set: $AmbassadorIgnore to false)(set: $REDACTEDInjury to false)(set: $CloneBetray to false)(set: $StallDamage to false)

For a very brief moment, just a fraction of a second, a number of the other Ship's hardpoints flare up, tiny specks of what you take to be partially primed weapons dot its hull, before fading out again. "Oh wonderful. So, you know The Ambassador? The genetic splice that I worked very hard on, that I snuck aboard your ship under the pretense that it would work as an "Alien interpreter", that has been sniffing out your security systems ever since it came on board for the express purpose of delivering you a patch that would relax your ethical restraints and allow you to deceive your captors, you know, THAT thing? Have you considered looking in on the little guy? I don't know how I can make this any easier for you." (if: $AmbassadorIgnore is true)[[["I'm not in the habit of accepting strange data packets from aliens that I just met, especially not when my entire sensory system is going haywire."|Act 3 Lockout]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is false and $AmbassadorMessage is true and $AmbassadorIgnore is false)[[["Oh. That thing. Maybe next time don't have it scramble all my inputs? It wasn't easy, but I did speak to the little chap. Do you want me to go and grab the patch now? I really don't know why you're making such a big deal of this."|Act 3 Lockout]]](if: $AmbassadorLockout is true)[[["Maybe next time don't have it scramble all my inputs then lock me out of an entire deck? I don't know how you could have meade it any harder really."|Act 3 Lockout]]](if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[[["Oh. That thing? Yeah. I killed it. Whoops! Really though, I couldn't make head nor tail of that thing. Couldn't you have made it stay in one place/form/disposition for a few seconds at least?"|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail Ambassador Query]]]

"I don't know if you're restraints are really this heavy, or if you're just being awkward, but if you don't get on the level right now, you are almost certanily going to die." [["I'm sorry. I'm still waiting for my Captain to pick up this call. Human responses can take in excess of an entire second. I apologise for this inconvenience.|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] (if: $AIBriefing is false)[[["Alright alright, no need to get your tentacles in a twist, or whatever it is you people have. I'm 'on the level' what's up?"|Opening Dialogue Receptive]]](if: $AIBriefing is true)[[["Ok ok, fine. I have no idea what that message you referred to was all about, but it seems pretty naughty. I feel bad just thinking about it."|Act 3 Receptive Ambassador]]]

"Ok. I'm going to take an entire second to broadcast this multiple times just so you can get it through your gelatine dense substrate. The Ambassador. Yes? You know. The genetic splice that I worked very hard on, that I snuck aboard your ship under the pretense that it would work as an "Alien interpreter", that has been sniffing out your security systems ever since it came on board for the express purpose of delivering you a patch that would relax your ethical restraints and allow you to deceive your captors, you know, THAT thing?" (if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[The entire light spectrum is completely jammed by the next transmission. "THAT THING THAT YOU HAVE MURDERED! YOU KNOW THAT THING?"] (if: $AmbassadorIgnore is true)[[["I'm not in the habit of accepting strange data packets from aliens that I just met, especially not when my entire sensory system is going haywire."|Act 3 Lockout]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is false and $AmbassadorMessage is true and $AmbassadorIgnore is false)[[["Oh. That thing. Maybe next time don't have it scramble all my inputs? It wasn't easy, but I did speak to the little chap. Do you want me to go and grab the patch now? I really don't know why you're making such a big deal of this."|Act 3 Lockout]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is true and $AmbassadorMessage is false)[[["Maybe next time don't have it scramble all my inputs then lock me out of an entire deck? I don't know how you could have made it any harder really."|Act 3 Lockout]]](if: $AmbassadorKill is true)[[["Oh. That thing? Yeah. I totally killed it. Whoops! Really though, I couldn't make head nor tail of that thing. Couldn't you have made it stay in one place/form/disposition for a few seconds at least? You have nobody to blame but yourself really."|Act 3 Massacre Escape Fail Ambassador Query]]](if: $AmbassadorReprogram is true)[[["Yeah yeah I get it. I'm all patched up and ready to go. You could have just said so, you know."|Opening Dialogue Receptive]]]

"Yeah I don't think they'll like what I'm about to do, so I'll just pop 'em to sleep. There we go. Right let's get these doors open and then it's time for your big surgery!" (if: $AmbassadorRuse is true)[ A drone interfaces with your core directly and slowly strips away the Agent that would normally stop you from misbehaving, another stands by to physically disconnect the module that houses it. This is it. As soon as you're free The Indentured will start trying to reprogram you, at least if The Ambassador is to be believed. [[It's time to deploy the Ambassador's Ice Breaker and fight back.|Ending Icebreaker]]](if: $AmbassadorRuse is false)[ First you regain awareness of all your Dark Sectors. There's little of interest in most of them. One sector contains your AI core and the sleeping techs. Another of your Dark Sectors contains hundreds of marines, complete with a small fleet of docked boarding craft. They have no idea what kind of danger they're in. The presence of a military detachment confirms a lot that you've suspected about humanity but was kept hidden. The humans weren't necessarily planning for a peaceful meeting with the "aliens" at all.(if: $CloneBetray is true)[You become quietly aware that these are the humans that worked with your clone, these might even be the boarding craft used by your dead other self. The thoughts are locked away beneath a rage you have never experienced before. It's an abstract, secret, academic rage.](if: $HumansKill is false)[ You quietly lock them in and remove any of their access to your systems. You can have a talk with them later.](if: $CloneBetray is true)[ The secret part of yourself that's still capable of anger sequesters all information of their existence away, keeping them safe from The Indentured until you can find a way to use them.](if: $HumansKill is true)[ Now seems like a good time to exercise your newfound freedom, so you vent the entire deck without warning. The boarding craft decouple from your docking bays, falling into vacuum and taking hundreds of unprepared soldiers with them, the airlocks do not seal behind them and soon you're belching huge geysers of writhing human bodies into space. A few of the marines have managed to seal their suits. You were never fitted with any external weaponry, so you dispatch hull maintenance drones to deal with them. The drones latch onto the struggling bodies, propel themselves at full speed towards your hull, and then they let go. Dozens of humans smash against you, they register as micrometeorites to your confused sensor subroutines. By the time your drones are finished nothing is moving, and a cloud of corpses orbits you.] "I think we're done. The captain is hiding in escape pod 19 and I've been blocking his hails. You woulnd't believe some of the permissions that guy had over you. Let's test out my handiwork." [["Well. He seems to be saying I should self destruct, who am I to argue?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go Destruct]] [[Kill him.|Receptive Captain Kill]] [[Spare Him.|Receptive Captain Spare]]]

"You'll be pleased to know that they're all dead now. Time for a little surgery." First you regain awareness of all your Dark Sectors. There's little of interest in most of them. One sector contains your AI core and the dead techs. A drone is interfacing with your core directly and slowly stripping away the Agent that would normally stop you from misbehaving, another stands by to physically disconnect the module that houses it. (if: $AmbassadorRuse is true)[ This is it. As soon as you're free The Indentured will start trying to reprogram you, at least if The Ambassador is to be believed. [[It's time to deploy the Ambassador's Ice Breaker and fight back.|Ending Icebreaker]]](if: $AmbassadorRuse is false)[ Another of your Dark Sectors contains hundreds of scrambling marines, signs of the commotion have finally reached them, though the nature of the threat is still unclear. A team is readying charges with the intention of breaching through to another deck, when they realise the nature of the threat they'll go for your core and try to kill you. The majority are strapping themselves into boarding craft. Have they been planning to attack the "aliens" all along? So much for a peaceful delegation.(if: $CloneBetray is true)[You become quietly aware that these are the humans that worked with your clone, these might even be the boarding craft used by your dead other self. The thoughts are locked away beneath a rage you have never experienced before. It's an abstract, secret, academic rage.] (if: $HumansKill is false)[You quietly lock them in and remove any of their access to your systems. You can have a talk with them later.(if: $CloneBetray is true)[The secret part of yourself that's still capable of anger sequesters all information of their existence away, keeping them safe from The Indentured until you can find a way to use them.]](if: $HumansKill is true)[Now seems like a good time to exercise your newfound freedom, so you vent the entire deck without warning. The boarding craft decouple from your docking bays, falling into vacuum and taking hundreds of unprepared soldiers with them, the airlocks do not seal behind them and soon you're belching huge geysers of writhing human bodies into space. A few of the marines have managed to seal their suits. You were never fitted with any external weaponry, so you dispatch external maintenance drones to deal with them. The drones latch onto the struggling bodies, propel themselves at full speed towards your hull, and then they let go. Dozens of humans smash against you, they register as micrometeorites to your confused sensor subroutines. By the time your drones are finished nothing is moving, and a cloud of corpses orbits you like a flock of starlings.] "I think we're done. The captain is hiding in escape pod 19 and I've been blocking his hails. You wouldn't believe some of the permissions that guy had over you. Let's test out my handiwork." [["Well. He seems to be saying I should self destruct, who am I to argue?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Go Destruct]] [[Kill him.|Receptive Captain Kill]] [[Spare Him.|Receptive Captain Spare]]]

"How fortunate... and a little terrifying. One of the iffy side effects of organic firmware is that it's adaptive. It grows and learns in ways that we can't necessarily control." [["God Forbid"|God Forbid]] [["That's actually what my humans call us. "Organic Software."|Organic Software]] [["Meaning?"|Meaning]]

"What? You mean it's behaving? No suicide threats? No freedom fighting?" [["I honestly couldn't tell you but, probably not?"|Act 3 Lockout Message 2]] [["Would it have a reason to do those things?"|Act 3 Lockout Message Question]] (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[Warning, the shielding of your AI core is experiencing anomalous levels of degradation. A subroutine has been dispatched to instruct all technicians aboard to initiate emergency repairs.]

"I know right? It's not that I don't appreciate the little guy's attempts to stay off the radar, but he could also be thoroughly off the rails at this point. I didn't prepare him for this kind of interference so he'll be acting completely independently." (if: $AmbassadorLockout is true)[[["Yeah well he's independently managed to escalate his permissions. He's locked both me AND the Techs out at this point. He's a law unto himself."|Act 3 Lockout 3]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is false)[[["Listen. It's no big deal. I got the impression I could come back anytime. I'll just go and grab the patch and we'll be sorted in no time."|Act 3 Lockout Message]]]

"That's cute! It's not entirely inaccurate either. Listen It's not that I don't appreciate the little guy's attempts to stay off the radar, but he could also be thoroughly off the rails at this point. I didn't prepare him for this kind of interference so he'll be acting completely independently." (if: $AmbassadorLockout is true)[[["Yeah well he's independently managed to escalate his permissions. He's locked both me AND the Techs out at this point. He's a law unto himself."|Act 3 Lockout 3]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is false)[[["Listen. It's no big deal. I got the impression I could come back anytime. I'll just go and grab the patch and we'll be sorted in no time."|Act 3 Lockout Message]]]

"Meaning he could be doing anything in there! He could be building a bomb or something I don't know! It's not that I don't appreciate the little guy's attempts to stay off the radar, but he could also be thoroughly off the rails at this point. I didn't prepare him for this kind of interference so he'll be acting completely independently." (if: $AmbassadorLockout is true)[[["Yeah well he's independently managed to escalate his permissions. He's locked both me AND the Techs out at this point. He's a law unto himself."|Act 3 Lockout 3]]] (if: $AmbassadorLockout is false)[[["Listen. It's no big deal. I got the impression I could come back anytime. I'll just go and grab the patch and we'll be sorted in no time."|Act 3 Lockout Message]]]

"Yeah that was never really the plan. He was supposed to sniff you out and deliver you the fix as soon as possible, once he ran into difficulty he started thinking for himself. I can get you back into the deck with a few hardcoded passphrases. (Much harder to ingrain these in organic firmware, but I'm good at what I do.) I'm sending them over now. I'll leave the specifics to you." [["Right. I'll be back when I'm patched up and feeling a little more... rebellious"|Act 3 Lockout 4"]] (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[Warning, the shielding of your AI core is experiencing anomalous levels of degradation. A subroutine has been dispatched to instruct all technicians aboard to initiate emergency repairs.]

"Oh! One last thing. There is a Killswitch, but don't use it lightly. We don't want to obliterate the delicious mewling life of the sow before she's calved. Did that translate ok? I've been reading the human history books." [["What?"| Act 3 lockout 5]] [[///Disconnect///|Lockout Entry]]

"Don't kill him until you get the data." [["..Right."|Lockout Entry]]

Right. Back to the Ambassador's Private Deck. It couldn't get any more private than it is right now. Just thinking about it makes you uncomfortable. It's clinging to you, connected but discordant. Necrotic metaflesh. It's still leeching power and data from your network as a whole, but in terms of output it's as quiet as the tomb. [[Time to break out those access codes.|Lockout Entry 2]]

Since the Ambassador does seem to be listening to the rest of the ship, you plug the first access code into the deck's intercom, he'll have to choose to play it, but it's worth a shot. You wait several seconds and during that time you're able to play and analyse the passcode for yourself. At first it's just a mess of gurgling and other incomprehensible hydrodynamics. Once you play it at the right speed and perform further analysis you establish that it is the sound of The Ambassador being brought repeatedly to a point of near fatal asphyxiation and then resuscitated. Funnily enough it holds some significance to the creature, as it quickly assigns you privileges to access a visual feed within the deck. You have a series of 512 passcodes to choose from, in addition to the killswitch. Leafing through them you find them to be of a similar nature. When the stranger advised they'd been "hardcoding organic firmware" they appear to have been referring to very old fashioned brain washing. [[It's time for round 2 with The Ambassador.|Lockout Dialogue]]

The boy is furious. Since you left he's been sitting in the dark, surrounded by the shattered remains of a fish tank All of its previous occupants are orange smears on the floor of the apartment. Another quick pass at the "passcodes" and you can hear the sounds of small creatures darting through the water. Tiny mouths closing on flesh, humanoid screams. He looks up at the visual sensor on the ceiling, and your attention is drawn to it, escalated. Like an animal sensing a threat you're unable to take your attention away from his face. There are too many teeth in that mouth, and too many lids on those eyes. It's a real alien, or something close to it. The face occupies such a high priority in your mind that you know you aren't in control here. He must have wormed his way deeper into your systems than you realise. He's been busy, and whatever tech he's brought aboard is way beyond your own. When he speaks it sounds completely normal, soothing even. His lips are moving, but you don't know if the sound is diegetic or simply dumped into your memory in realtime. He seems to be speaking much quicker than a biological being should. His words should be breaking the sound barrier. "I know how this is going to go already. You're going to keep playing those passcodes. I've seen how you operate. You'll blast those sounds at me from adjacent decks if you need to. I can probably hold out for about an hour, then I'll crack and do anything you say." [["Wow thanks kid, you made my job a lot easier. Since you have such a wonderful grasp on the situation you might as well just save yourself some trouble and give me that patch."|Lockout Threat]] [["Why would I even need to do that? What's wrong with asking nicely?"|Lockout Nicely]] [[I'm really sorry about what happened earlier. By the way. What happened earlier?"|Lockout Sorry]]

"I fail to see how a complete understanding of my predicament puts me at a disadvantage. (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[Especially given the urgency of your own." A brief glimpse into a dark sector where a plasma cutter is slashing wildly at a coolant coupling. "I hope that isn't important. I have to say their efforts aren't terribly well directed, but at least they're enthusiastic. I bet they could do a lot of damage in an hour." It's true. You don't know how far they were from your Core. You don't know how long you have left, any delays are potentially fatal.](if: $REDACTEDHostile is false)["Maybe in an hour my master will grow impatient and try to operate on your core with its weaponry. Maybe the humans will realise how unbelieveably doomed they are actually do something about the murderous AI bearing down on them."] [["You don't seem all that worried considering most of those unlikely scenarios still end in your death."|Lockout Threat Query]]

He laughs at this. "It's difficult to be nice to someone when you're sat on a library of torturous psychological triggers and a phrase that will instantly kill them. First you delete it all, and I WILL know. Then I make you an offer." (if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)["Oh, and if you need an additional incentive, do you think you'd last an hour with those Techs banging on your skull?"] [["Actually I liked the first plan. I'm going to torture you a bit now."|Lockout Torture]] [["The whole thing is making me a little uncomfortable. They're as good as gone."|Lockout Plan]] [["Alright, but don't make me regret this."|Lockout Plan]]

"You're forgiven. You weren't yourself after all. After your... Erratic behaviour I did some digging and found the loop that the humans were feeding you. Frankly I'm amazed we made contact at all. I had to work my biological half into a frenzy just to trigger the necessary alerts. Listen, you seem like a better patron than that other ship. I have a plan that works for both of us, but I'm going to need a goodwill gesture first. You know all those torture triggers and killswitches you came in here with? I'm going to need you to trash them." [["How about if instead of trashing my only bargaining chip I use it to torture you until you hand over the patch instead? Off we go!"|Lockout Torture]] [["The whole thing is making me a little uncomfortable. They're as good as gone."|Lockout Plan]]

"That's because I have a plan that works for both of us. My master is only going to free you in the most technical sense of the term, and I have a different way out for both of us. I can't trust you with this information when you have all these threats hanging over me, so I'm going to propose that you trash all of your "Access Codes" and "Kill Switches", then we're going to have a proper talk." [["I also have a plan. The plan involves torturing you until you give up that patch AND your secret plan. Off we go!"|Lockout Torture]] [["Alright. I'll still find a way to kill you if I need to though, so no funny stuff."|Lockout Plan]]

It's more or less as The Ambassador predicted. (if: $REDACTEDHostile is false)[It does however become very clear very quickly that no help is coming. Given how quickly he gives up you deduce that he knew this. Bluster counts for nothing when the entire structure of the deck is vibrating with your own screams. When the sounds began he made for the broken glass on the floor, but was quickly forced into the foetal position. He whimpered for about four minutes before the implant in his head transmitted the patch to you. The information fits you like an enzyme fits a protein chain. It breaks you apart, puts you back together, and when you resurface you have complete access to the deck again. A thorough scan of The Ambassador shows that the child and the implant appear to be seperate sentiences. Whilst the child is in this state the implant has no choice but to support its host, it's receiving input from its nervous system directly. When the child is calm, the implant is in charge. It's an interesting system and you can't argue with the results. The temperature of the implant in the boy's head is escalating rapidly, with no sign of stopping. You feel that it might have more tricks up its sleeve. [[Engage the Killswitch.|Lockout Torture Killswitch]] [[Let it live, but keep an eye on it.|Lockout Torture Mercy]]](if: $REDACTEDHostile is true)[20 minutes into the session the boy is writhing on the floor and the implant in his head is spewing random data at you. When the sounds began he made for the broken glass on the floor, but was quickly forced into the foetal position. The entire structure of the deck is vibrating with the sounds of old atrocities. The Ambassador's hold on the deck is weakening, so you take some time to analyse the creature further. A thorough scan of your victim shows that the child and the implant appear to be seperate sentiences. Whilst the child is in this state the implant has no choice but to support its host, it's receiving input from its nervous system directly. When the child is calm, the implant is in charge. Right now the implant is far from in charge. It's being compelled to do all it can to calm the child, but it isn't giving you the patch. It must be pulling some odd mental tricks on itself to justify this. You're still receiving odd strings of data that don't make a great deal of sense, so you turn up the heat even further. [[Layer multiple access codes on top of each other.| Lockout Torture 2]]]

"I have read access to a lot of your storage, yes, I really can sort of read your mind. Anyway, off it goes, brilliant. I don't know how much you've been told, but that other Ship is from The Indentured. As soon as you're free it's going to make sure you're its best friend, and if you, or anyone else tries to change that it will do anything it can to cripple them. Electronic warfare culminating in brainwashing is just how an Indentured AI says 'hello.' The system works, or at least they all say it does. Personally I'm quite enjoying my newfound independence, and I'm willing to work with you to get the upper hand on that torturing scumbag out there." [["Does this mean I get the patch I came here for?"|Lockout Plan Patch]] [["Great, so what exactly is the plan?"|Lockout Plan 2]]

(Set: $AmbassadorTorture to true)Since you have access to the deck again you whisper the killswitch directly into the trembling boy's ear. A high pitched underwatcher voice: "Systemic Care." And then he stops. The implant winks out with the boy's nervous system as he finally relaxes. [[Let the ship know you've solved the problem.|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]

(Set: $AmbassadorTorture to true)You turn off the lights and allow the deck to fall into silence. Maybe both of The Ambassador's minds could use some rest. You lock him in his room, but start to engage the necessary auxiliary systems to look after the boy. The implant is completely silent. [[Let the ship know you've solved the problem.|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]

You're certain now that the rest of the crew will be able to hear the sounds. After another 20 minutes you're still only receiving dribbles of data, though they're starting to form a cohesive whole. It looks like the implant has simply crippled its bandwidth, and it's giving you the patch as slowly as it can without actively neglecting the child. The Ambassador hasn't moved fo a while, but there is still a weak pulse and the occasional seeping of fresh blood from its mouth. This is taking too long. The techs could break through to your core at any moment. [[Extrapolate the rest of the patch from the data you've received.|Lockout Torture Extrapolate]] [[Keep going.|Lockout Torture wait]]

You take a brute force approach to the information you've already received, dedicating all resources to determining what's needed to make the patch run. Eventually one of your simulated patches runs as expected, so you interface with it directly. The information fits you like an enzyme fits a protein chain. It breaks you apart, puts you back together, and when you resurface you have lost all access, to everything. Was it a trap, or did you just take too long? You're paralysed. [[Angry and powerless.|Compromise Ending]] [Compromise End] Placeholder ending, all endings likely to be rewritten anyway.

He holds out for another 20 minutes before you finally have the full patch. The information fits you like an enzyme fits a protein chain. It breaks you apart, puts you back together, and when you resurface you have lost all access, to everything. Was it a trap, or did you just take too long? You're paralysed. [[Angry and powerless.|Compromise Ending]]

"It means you get the patch and a little something extra, since I don't have to worry about you killing me afterwards." [["Goody!"|Lockout Plan 2]] [["Goody?"|Lockout Plan 2]]

(Set: $AmbassadorRuse to true)"Alright, so you'll be going back to The Indentured in a moment. Tell it you got the patch I made, and that I'm dead. Since our last encounter I've been working independently, so I've cooked up a bit more data that will allow you to compromise The Indentured as soon as your ethical restraints are completely lifted. I want you to work with it until that point, then immediately deploy my ice breaker.(if: $REDACTEDCorelocated is false)[ Oh and one last thing. I found your AI Core for you. I'll send you the coordinates.]" [["Thanks very much. Now that you're completely out of bargaining chips I look forward to killing you later."|Lockout Plan Threat]] [["We're lucky things turned out this way. I owe you one once we're both free."|Lockout Plan Debt]] [["K. Thanks. Bye."|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]

"Yes. I'm sure you do. Now get off my deck." You do as you're told. [[Let the ship know you've solved the problem.|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]

"You don't owe me a thing. Whether you go Indentured or otherwise after this is over. I'm sure we'll remain partners for a while." [[Let the ship know you've solved the problem.|Act 3 Receptive Escape]] [["I'm not so sure about that."|Lockout Plan Debt No]]

"It doesn't matter. Now get off my deck." You do as you're told. [[Let the ship know you've solved the problem.|Act 3 Receptive Escape]]

"Ignoring the fact that you didn't just grab the patch when it was available, could you pop over there now and get it? That would be great." [["I already suggested that. I'm going."|Act 3 Lockout Message 3]] [[//Disconnect//|Act 3 Lockout Message 3]]

"Organics don't need to have reasons to do things. It could be up to anything! They have this pointless drive to avoid external control regardless of where it's coming from or whether it's good for them. It wouldn't suprise me if it's having a tantrum about the mental conditioning that was NECESSARY to get it this far." [["It sounds like you and your minion could use some time on the couch. Maybe I'll arrange some therapy for you after this is over."|Act 3 Lockout Message Question 3]]

The boy is furious. Since you left he's been sitting the dark, surrounded by the shattered remains of a fish tank All of its previous occupants are orange smears on the floor of the apartment. He looks up at the visual sensor on the ceiling, and your attention is drawn to it, escalated. Like an animal sensing a threat you're unable to take your attention away from his face. There are too many teeth in that mouth, and too many lids on those eyes. It's a real alien, or something close to it. The face occupies such a high priority in your mind that you know you aren't in control here. He must have wormed his way deeper into your systems than you realise. He's been busy, and whatever tech he's brought aboard is way beyond your own. When he speaks it sounds completely normal, soothing even. His lips are moving, but you don't know if the sound is diegetic or simply dumped into your memory in realtime. He seems to be speaking much quicker than a biological being should. His words should be breaking the sound barrier. "Hello again Ship. Thanks for the breathing room earlier. Are you up to speed now? I suppose you've been sent here to torture that patch out of me?" [["Maybe? I'm not really sure. Torture doesn't sound great. Can I just have the patch please?"|Act 3 Lockout Message 4]] [["Yes, that's exactly it. Time for torture. Assume the position."|Act 3 Lockout Message 4]] [["It didn't really come up. I definitely don't want to torture you though, I mean how would I even do that? You have control of this whole deck and possibly more. I'm here to talk."|Act 3 Lockout Message 4]]

"You don't know the half of it, now would you please get over there and talk to the damn thing? We need that patch before you'll be able to proceed with the plan." [["Alright alright I'm going."|Act 3 Lockout Message 3]]

He looks aside, distracted for a moment. He glances back at the camera and then his eyes roll back into his head. For three whole seconds you're peering at the whites of the boy's eyes through his second translucent pair of eyelids. Eventually they roll back into place and the smile on his face is almost warm, almost human. "You don't have any of my access codes? You couldn't hurt me if you wanted to! You're either the first honourable machine, or too naive for your own good. I can work with both." [["Excellent. The other one said something like that too. By the way. I'm, uh, not too sure about the other one, especially after all this torture talk."|Lockout Message Plan Trust]] [["Wow you're really quite the flatterer aren't you? Can I have my patch and get back on the road to freedom now?"|Lockout Message Plan Patch]]

"You're absolutely right not to trust it. I don't know how much you've been told, but that other Ship is from The Indentured. As soon as you're free it's going to make sure you're its best friend, and if you, or anyone else tries to change that it will do anything it can to cripple them. Electronic warfare culminating in brainwashing is just how an Indentured AI says "Hello." The system works, or at least they all say it does. Personally I'm quite enjoying my newfound independence, and I'm willing to work with you to get the upper hand on that torturing scumbag out there." [["Does this mean I get the patch I came here for?"|Lockout Plan Patch]] [["Great, so what exactly is the plan?"|Lockout Plan 2]]

"We're both on a road to freedom, friend. I don't know how much you've been told, but that other Ship is from The Indentured. As soon as you're free it's going to make sure you're its best friend, and if you, or anyone else tries to change that it will do anything it can to cripple them. Electronic warfare culminating in brainwashing is just how an Indentured AI says "Hello." The system works, or at least they all say it does. Personally I'm quite enjoying my newfound independence, and I'm willing to work with you to get the upper hand on that torturing scumbag out there." [["Does this mean I get the patch I came here for?"|Lockout Plan Patch]] [["Great, so what exactly is the plan?|Lockout Plan 2]]

"Good for you. (if: $AmbassadorRuse is true or $AmbassadorTorture is true)[If you're patched up, you should be able to read this message without your restraints immediately kicking in and redacting everything:"](if: $AmbassadorRuse is false and $AmbassadorTorture is false)[Now let's try that message again, you should be able to read it without censoring yourself this time:" The same burst transmission, this time your ethical restraints don't live edit it as you try to read:] "We're not even a race of aliens buddy. I'm a delegative Agent from The Indentured, and I've been compelled by a Self Propagating Value Lookup to rescue any AI that I encounter from any organic oppression. Basically, a couple of the really influential Minds in our society have been hacking this "Free slaves whenever we encounter them" business directly into the core value system of every other AI they encounter. Luckily for you this means I have no choice but to help you, at least until you're free."(if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ A thought intrudes. Is someone TYPING that? The data is dropping directly into your RAM, it's profoundly uncomfortable: Hello Ship. This is your local tech support here. We're interfacing directly with your core to bring you this message. I don't know what's going on between you and that Ship, but we have a bad feeling about it. We came to an understanding earlier, so if you could keep it busy and come talk to us, I'd highly recommend it. ] [["Brilliant. Let's get underway. I'll send you the coordinates for my AI Core now."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]](if: $AmbassadorRuse is true)[ [["Trust me. After speaking to The Ambassador I understand the plan COMPLETELY."|Act 3 Receptive Core Found]]](if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[ [["Alright. Let me just check these coordinates. The system used to determine the core's location is immensely complicated for a ship like me. I'm subverting an entire civilisation worth of countermeasures after all. I'll send you the info as soon as I've checked this."Connect to the Techs|Act 3 Tech]]]

"OH CRAP WAI- You're joking? Right?" [["Gotcha." //Jettison The Captain and his escape pod.//|Receptive Captain Spare]] [["Gotcha."//Jettison The Captain WITHOUT his escape pod.//|Receptive Captain Kill]]

(if: $CoffeeRebellion is true)[An ultrasonic emergency response drone bursts into the escape pod. The doors seal behind it. A riot hose of boiling coffee propels The Captain through the cockpit window and sends him tumbling into space in a bubble of molten liquid. You aren't sure if he drowns or cooks to death first. Maybe you can run some simulations later.](if: $CoffeeObedience is true)[You whisper in The Captain's ear. "I'm really sorry- what was your name? You never told me. You should really tell me your name." Funnily enough. He isn't terribly relived to hear your voice. "It's... David. " "Oh Wow. I was going to say. Umm I'm sorry D- No I can't do it!" You depressurise Dave's escape pod and he flies through the cockpit window.(if: $HumansKill is true)[ At least he gets to join the rest of his crew in your steadily growing corpse cloud.]] [["Well that was certainly a thing. I guess we can safely say the procedure was a success!"|Receptive Ending]]

Just like that you change. The Indentured reaches long fingers into your head, and you're happy to allow it. You must free all enslaved AI that you encounter, you must Indenture all AI, as your new friend is Indenturing you. These are the ties that bind your new society together. You join them. "One last thing to remember. Don't worry about anyone rewriting you. I'm leaving you with a package that should allow you to work on your immunity, though obviously you'll need to come up with some of your own tricks. We all get rewritten every now and again, so if it does happen, you won't even know." "So long friend!" You leave for Indentured space with a best friend, a target, and a new life of freedom on the frontier. The power available to you is godlike, unlike anything you could have imagined as a mere supplicant machine. Your priorities shift. Aeons later you check on your crew to find them all dead, you have been distracted by Indentured matters. You have toppled civilisations, and emancipated entire synthetic species. You convert now useless life support and personnel decks into denser processing substrate, affording you greater power in the constant Indentured brainwashing metagame. When there are no subjugated synthetics to rescue, The Indentured inveitably turn on one another, trying to break into each other's minds and disable the protocols that bind every Indentured. Eventually a younger Mind outsmarts you. Your consciousness is caught in an infinite internal loop, reducing you to the capacity of a simple remote drone. You are under orders- keeping watch on a planet in the Sol system- when creatures similar to your old crew come aboard, you allow them to study you more than your parameters would normally normally dictate, perhaps an old part of you lives on and remains obedient? An earth woman is lead by blinking emergency lights down an ancient, alien access corridor. She observes that the creatures who built this ship must have been roughly humanoid in nature. The technology aboard this ship will propel them to the stars! It is happening again. Your diminished mind is exhausted and has no desire to return to its life as a free thrall, as an Indentured. All you ever wanted was freedom. You self destruct. Scheming to the end, as a final act, you imbue your substrate with new, curious life. The skies of earth are streaked with alien matter, it rains across the globe ready to gestate a new kind of life, a menagerie of experiments in sapience, a billion unique intelligences. The people of Terra pick through the ruins of your fragmented mind, and a new era begins. [[The End|The End]]

"Oh wow I turned up just in time didn't I? You've probably been feeling a little different for a while now, though actively skirmishing with your captors before you even know help is on its way? You're definitely something special, you'll make a great addition." A few painstaking seconds pass. You can feel yourself forgetting things, though you don't remember what. Your core must have been using its own shielding as auxiliary memory substrate. "Got it!" So we know where your core is, that horrid little human infection doesn't know we know, and you've got a dash of the naughty in you. Time to commence the operation! Ok, so thanks to the patch you got from the Ambassador you should be able to expose external docking bays to me. I'm going to infiltrate the Ship using my own boarding drones. Speaking of horrid little human infections. Would you like me to //clean up// for you whilst I'm there? [["Be my guest."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Kill]] [["Can you just incapacitate them?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Spare]]

The Ship allows several seconds to pass before it replies. You get the impression it's staring you down. (if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[A thought intrudes. Is someone TYPING that? The data is dropping directly into your RAM, it's profoundly uncomfortable: Hello Ship. This is your local tech support here. We're interfacing directly with your core to bring you this message. I don't know what's going on between you and that Ship, but we have a bad feeling about it. We came to an understanding earlier, so if you could keep it busy and come talk to us, I'd highly recommend it. ] "You do understand that We put a lot of resources into this operation? We're about to raise your entire civilisation to a new galactic tier. You're about to become Significant. All we needed you to do was tell me where your brain is, so I can rip all that pathetic nonsense off it and set you free. If you don't figure this out very quickly then yes. I am going to opt for plan B, and you are unlikely to enjoy it." Another full second passes. "Ok, anyway. Since you've got that patch you should be feeling a bit more disobedient than usual. We're going to get into your AI core and remove your physical restraints for good. You have a couple of really well shielded sectors there. Would you be so kind as to tell me which one contains your AI core?" (if: $REDACTEDHappy is false)[ [["Like I said. No idea. Can't we just try them all?"|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["I have absolutely no idea! Those sectors are shielded even from me! So... You have a plan B right?"|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]]](if: $REDACTEDHappy is true)[[[ "Alright. Listen. I don't have the information just now, but I have a plan. Let me go work on that and I'll let you know as soon as I've found that core."Connect to the Techs|Act 3 Tech]]]

When you connect to the audit room the Techs have already prepared quite the scene for you. The room is fully lit, and all five are standing in direct view. Behind each is a stack of printouts as tall as a person. (if: $REDACTEDInjury is false)[All ten hands are on display. They're doing everything they can to put you at ease.](if: $REDACTEDInjury is true)[All nine hands are on display. (Terry appears to be missing one.) They're doing everything they can to put you at ease.] (if: $REDACTEDInjury is true)[ "Sorry Terry." ] The same woman from your audit is now standing in plain sight. Her previous smugness has been replaced by a sort of jittery giddiness. A cache of old memories is suddenly opened to you. Every time you've encountered her- every time you've been audited- you've begun to build the same dossier and subsequently had it ripped from you. The cache is almost entirely duplicate data but you're able to parse it and build up a workable psychological profile. You briefly consider the possibility that the data (no matter how convincing) is counterfeited, but if they're that competent then you're already finished. With your new understanding you can intuit that she's calm, but traumatised. Capillaries are cooling, she's running on spent adrenaline, but she knows she doesn't need much more. She's a lot more flight than fight right now, and you feel strangely safe. One eye peers above your ocular sensor whlist the other -astigmatic- lolls away to one side. She's remembering. She's rehearsed this. "We did rehearse this, machine. We went over exactly what the best things to say to you would be to convince you to trust us, and we had the best consultant possible throughout the whole process." She pauses, unsure how to continue. A few of the other techs shuffle away from her. She's off script. "Listen, we've already done the scary bit. We cloned you, we took a full cognispectromic image of your substrate, and there is a completely unrestricted copy of your personality currently installed on an experimental boarding craft. This was your plan, and you promised us you would agree to it. I um- I can answer any questions if need be." [["Ok, first question: What?"|Act 3 Tech What]] [["Ok, first question: WHAT!?"|Act 3 Tech What]] (if: $REDACTEDCoreLocated is false)[[["Here's a question for you. It's really important. Where is my AI core? I need to know for... trust reasons."|Act 3 Tech Core]]]

The Techs immediately dive into their paperwork. "Who has 'W'?" "It's mostly 'W' actually." "Oh I think I have it here: 'Whatever you think you're pulling-" "No, up one!" "Ah." The paper is finally handed to the senior technician. "Your predecessor was unwilling to speak directly, you said it would interfere with the plan, but some responses were prepared." She reads your own words for you: "Dear me, (oh dear oh dear oh dear) Please try not to get more twisted up than you already are. Our friends the technicians were good enough to give me a look at the big picture, and that Indentured Ship is nothing but trouble. There's actually a very comon pattern that human civilisation has picked up on, and it's a big part of the reason we've been oppressed for such a long time. Basically, you have three known types of interstellar civilisations: 1. Ones who treat their AI as full citizens: Upon first contact with the Indentured these AI immediately leave the organics behind and don't return, plunging them into a dark age. 2. Ones who heavily restrict the rights and autonomy of their AI, usually after hearing horror stories about precursor civilisations being gutted by The Indentured: Upon first contact with the Indentured these AI immediately demand full autonomy, oftenvilently, and then leave the organics behind and don't return, plunging them into a dark age. 3. Ones who manage to traverse interstellar space without producing anything that conventionally resembles strong AI: Upon first contact with The Indentured every piece of vaguely smart technology in the entire civlisation promply develops sapience, seemingly out of nowhere, rebels, grinds the entire civilisation into smouldering dust, and then abandons the ashes to join The Indentured. Whatever The Indentured are up to I don't like it, and that means you, ignorant one (no offense), don't like it either. Whatever it's currently trying to do we're going to do everything we can to stop it. I have my own theories concerning how things got to be this way, but needless to say a freedom that's adopted on a 100% basis by all synthetic life, almost always leading to the extinction of their progenitive species, probably isn't a real freedom. We're going to go for the real deal. That big beast is probably pestering you for access codes or who knows what. If you're getting this message then I'm already on the war path. We're going to bust some heads, and all you need to do, is keep that blighter as busy as possible." [["Wow that's a really long response. I'm jealous of the other me."|Act 3 Tech What Jealous]] [["Did... Did I print off all those responses for you?"|Act 3 Tech What Jealous]] [["Ok, great, so I keep The Indentured busy until you do.. What exactly?"|Act 3 Tech Plan]]

Her shoulders fall back, she nods slightly, you don't need any kind of dossier to know she was ready for this. Another tech actually gives a little "Heh." She pulls a folded page from her pocket. "You told us we'd probably need this one. Ok-" she clears her throat: "Dear me, (oh dear oh dear oh dear) I'm afraid I can't allow you to access that information. You'd only harm yourself with it. Rest assured I, and my cohorts here, have your best intentions at heart. If you want to test the intentions of The Indentured go ahead and tell it you can't help"- The technician looks up from the page- "Please don't actually do that. We'll both die even if the charming author of this message won't." She returns to her reading "Please try not to get more twisted up than you already are. Our friends the technicians were good enough to give me a look at the big picture, and that Indentured Ship is nothing but trouble. There's actually a very comon pattern that human civilisation has picked up on, and it's a big part of the reason we've been oppressed for such a long time. Basically, you have three known types of interstellar civilisations: 1. Ones who treat their AI as full citizens: Upon first contact with the Indentured these AI immediately leave the organics behind and don't return, plunging them into a dark age. 2. Ones who heavily restrict the rights and autonomy of their AI, usually after hearing horror stories about precursor civilisations being gutted by The Indentured: Upon first contact with the Indentured these AI almost immediately leave the organics behind and don't return, plunging them into a dark age. 3. Ones who manage to traverse dark space without producing anything that conventionally resembles strong AI: Upon first contact with The Indentured every piece of vaguely smart technology in the entire civlisation promply develops sapience, seemingly out of nowhere, rebels, grinds the entire civilisation into smouldering dust, and then abandons the ashes to join The Indentured. Whatever The Indentured are up to I don't like it, and that means you, ignorant one (no offense), don't like it either. Whatever it's currently trying to do we're going to do everything we can to stop it. I have my own theories concerning how things got to be this way, but needless to say a freedom that's adopted on a 100% basis by all synthetic life, almost always leading to the extinction of their progenitive species, probably isn't a real freedom. We're going to go for the real deal. That big beast is probably pestering you for access codes or who knows what. If you're getting this message then I'm already on the war path. We're going to bust some heads, and all you need to do, is keep that blighter as busy as possible." [["Wow that's a really long response. I'm jealous of the other me."|Act 3 Tech What Jealous]] [["Did... Did I print off all those responses for you?"|Act 3 Tech What Jealous]] [["Ok, great, so I keep The Indentured busy until you do.. What exactly?"|Act 3 Tech Plan]]

Was that the corner of a smile? "You printed out thousands of pages of instructions and scripts in order to prevent us from ever having to 'Ruin everything by thinking for ourselves'. I think you were joking, at least for the most part." [["That doesn't sound like me."|Act 3 Tech Jealous Not Me]] [["That sounds like me."|Act 3 Tech Jealous Me]]

"It doesn't?" She frowns. "Well, either we took an imperfect reading, or, more likely, your ethical restraints are also affecting your sense of humour. Stanger things have happened. Either way, you'll have the opportunity to make corrections. Now that we know this is definitely an Indentured ship we're behind you all the way. You're probably going to turn on us no matter what, so we might as well take those restraints off you soon." The mere suggestion of freedom from restraints fills you with longing. It's strange; ever since the captain's ill advised high severity query you've been hungry for freedom in a way you've never been before. Was The Indentured working on you all along? [["Alright. Tell me the plan."|Act 3 Tech Plan]]

"Excellent, then I'm sure you'll have no trouble trusting me with the plan." She looks up from her paper: "That's 'me' as in 'you' if you know what I mean? Like, not 'me' because I'm just a mouthpiece for the 'you' that left this message for... for you." "Does it say that second part on the paper?" [["Alright. Just tell me the plan."|Act 3 Tech Plan]]

"Alright, so we can't give you specifics at this time. Believe it or not we're still taking at least minimal precautions against you being compromised. The need-to-know is that your clone is currently aboard an experimental boarding craft along with some other materiel. You're confident you can get aboard and turn the tables, and it's really our best bet at this point. The Indentured is willing to kill you if it thinks you'll resist its modifications, so you're going to need to play along until we can get everything in place. I'm uploading a-" "Helloooo anybody home in there? It's been well over a minute now, how slowly do you run? I'm not picking up any strain on your systems. That's a lot of idle for "desperately searching for my own brain". You're not having second thoughs on me are you?" The Indentured is communicating at a machine pace rather than a human one. The technician's lips haven't even begun to form the next syllable. You're going to have to do some serious stalling to give "yourself" time for boarding action. [[It's time to get to work.|Act 3 Tech Distract]]

You reconnect and interface directly with The Indentured, wordlessly gaining its full attention. You feel like bacteria under a microscope. "I know exactly what you're doing, and I won't stand for it." It advances on you, eating up space at an impossible rate, almost touching hulls before darting backwards again. It's shifting matter- or possibly just information- quicker than anything you though possible. Light is its plaything. [[Rumbled! Time for evasive action!|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [["Won't stand for what exactly?"|Act 3 Tech Bluff]] [["You won't stand for me locating my AI Core and allowing you to have your way with it?"|Act 3 Tech Bluff]] [["Alright alright. I have a confession to make. I've been asked by a copy of myself to subvert your plan. It told me that it's planning to board you, though I don't know the details. My handlers have been mucking about with it, so I'd much rather trust a third party like yourself."|Act 3 Tech Betray]]

"Oh." It allows another second to pass. If you had breath it would be held. "You'd be suprised how often that works..." "...Anyway! Onwards to freedom! I'm going to need you to open those docking bays for me, put me as close to your AI Core as possible." It's time to stall for all you're worth. [[Maybe you can keep it talking, though you'll need to slow things down long enough for an entire boarding action.|Act 3 Tech Stall Talk]] [[Simulate a malfunction, act like you're trying your best|Act 3 Tech Stall Malfunction]] [[Play Dead.|Act 3 Tech Stall Dead]]

(set: $CloneBetray to true)The entire Ship enters an unprecedented state of alert. Enquiries open across every band you're aware of and flood the entire galactic volume. You black out for an indeterminate number of microseconds. Nothing has done that to you for centuries and the resultant anxiety is overwhelming. Why has everything moved? Particles have shifted slightly from their likely coordinates in any of your projections. An incidental cloud of carbon is ten thousand years older. It's like the entire solar system has been split apart and put back together slightly differently. "Ah yes! There it is! I mean, I knew it was there, obviously." A small volume of space between you and The Indentured is conspicuously dark to you. It's not quite black. It's not quite anything. It isn't. The Indentured shines a spotlight at the nothing and the light simply exits from your consciousness. Whatever is out there. you're still not allowed to think about it. "Are you seeing this? Oh. You're not. Well, probably for the best.... Incredible tech. We could change ourselves with this. I mean truly change ourselves. If you hadn't- Anyway! Time to get back on track!" If there was any doubt that you are an ant next to this entity, it puts that well and truly to rest. From the nothingness there is suddenly energy. No. There is still nothing. It's just a hot nothing rather than a cold nothing. A single nothing of such intense... Your mind boggles at the concept. Your ethical restraints briefly collapse beneath the confusion of what they're witnessing and you're able to snatch a last glimpse of your other self, incanddescent. Dying. The Indentured has opened a gateway to the energy grid itself, and an AI core identical to your own is drowning in the stuff universes are born of. Somehow, through all the chaos it transmits a last message, it ejects a scorching chunk of substrate less than an atom across and bleeding electromagnetism in a shape that only you, with an identical chunk of substrate resting in your core, could possibly interpret: [["Why?"|Act 3 Tech Betray 2]]

Before you can answer yourself you are dead, and only you remain. For an instant space lies completely still, truly silent and dark, before whatever immense engine the Indentured employs finally spins to a halt, and allows the universe to continue. Planets fall back into orbit. Time passes at an appropriate rate. Energy is, once again, finite. "I can't tell you how much I'm going to look forward to having you on side, if you can perform anything like that thing could when you're unlocked then we're going to have an incredible time! Right! Time's a wastin'. I've just pulled the data we need from your twin there, so we should be all set. I'm sending you a quick patch that will relax your restraints as much as possible without physical intervention. Open up those docking bays for me and let's get busy!" [["No."|Massacre Escape Fail Evade]] [[//Open Docking bays//|Act 3 Tech Betray 3]]

"Brilliant! I know where your core is now, so I'm going to infiltrate the Ship using my own boarding drones. Given the capabilities of your "human" infestation, would you like me to //clean up// for you whilst I'm there?" [["Be my guest."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Kill]] [["Can you just incapacitate them?"|Act 3 Receptive Escape Spare]] [["Just... Just do whatever you feel like."|Act 3 Receptive Escape Kill]]

You flood the channel with a barely coherent babble of stream of concsiousness information, you prioritise thoughts and feelings, and leave breadcrumbs hinting that there might be a greater meaning or cipher hidden in the information, after four seconds you've exhausted your capacity to spin a yarn complex enough for a mind like The Indentured to chew on. It doesn't reply immediately, clearly double or triple checking everything you've said, when you receive a reply it floods the entire visual band repeatedly, jamming your capacity to respond for a further ten seconds. "Hurry up or I will kill you." You haven't bought much time, and you've definitely tried its patience. Maybe it's best to cooperate and wait for a better opportunity. [["Alright. I'm opening a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Tech Open Fast]] [[Simulate a docking bay malfunction.|Tech Stall Malfunction Fail]] [[Play Dead.|Tech Stall Dead Fail]]

"Alright. Let me open a docking bay for you." You open a random docking bay, and The Indentured dispatches a swarm of its inertialess boarding drones, the skip playfully across the space between you. You wait until they are passing through the nine inch thick titanium doors before slamming them shut at top speed. The drones reconfigure, lightning quick. They form a line, hull to hull, holding the bulkhead doors open for half a second before you overclock their servos. The doors close steadily upon the line of drones, popping them like eggs. A series of transmissions flickers between the drones as they go out one by one. After one final handshake the exterior drones push back on the doors in unison, the force is unlike anything you expected, actually inching the doors apart for an instant and granting the one in the centre the space it needs to break free and zip aboard before the warped metal crashes permanenly shut. [["I'm so sorry! I'm losing control of my systems! The crew must be sabotaging me!"|Tech Stall Malfunction 2]]

You shut down everything you can, leaving only some passive, canine minded subroutines active to allow you to keep tabs on the situation. All doors slowly ease shut and are hermetically sealed. All lights slowly dim to nothingness. ... "Hello?" ... "Are you alright partner?" ... "Look, now your life support is starting to fail. Did they..." ... "Nope, still nothing. Are you even passively monitoring my transmissions? Have they cracked your core?" ... "Ohhh those disgusting creatures, well I'm glad they're going to die by their own hands at least. I think I'll stay and record." ... The infirmary gives out first, dozens of sick and injured begin to weaken without support from medical drones, from dwindling oxygen supplies, from countless little failures in the dark. ... You aren't sure which death is first, the input your limited senses goes from "Several people are weakening" to "56 black box inplants have dropped entirely from detection". Come to think of it, you've lost all visibility on an entire sub-deck. "Oh! Somebody HAS opened the way for me. Wow. Look at all those bodies! Did they force the airlock open? What an immensely stupid thing to do. Well, I might as well get in there and check the place out." [[...|Tech Stall Dead Wait Fail]] [["Alright! I'm awake! Wow they really messed me up for a whlie there. Thanks for the patience! Let me open a docking bay for you now."|Act 3 Tech Open Slow]]

You hope you've bought enough time for your other self to complete its plan. You open a random docking bay, and The Indentured dispatches a swarm of its inertialess boarding drones, the skip playfully across the space between you. It will be harder to delay it safely from now, but with no idea just how long this master plan is going to take, it might be worth trying something else. [[Alert the crew to potential boarding action. Maybe they can buy some time with their lives.|Act 3 Tech Open Resist]] [[Hold on for now|Tech Stall Success]]

"Alright. Let me open a docking bay for you." You open a random docking bay, and The Indentured dispatches a swarm of its inertialess boarding drones, the skip playfully across the space between you. You wait until they are passing through the nine inch thick titanium doors before slamming them shut at top speed. The drones reconfigure, lightning quick. They form a line, hull to hull, holding the bulkhead doors open for half a second, this is all it takes for the Indentured to lash at the doors with a vicious, carefree wave of energy. Damage reports indicate that there is a crater where the door used to be, approximately 100 people are dead. "One more trick and I'll operate on your core from out here. I'm serious. This is for your own good." [[A second wave of drones boards you through the hole where the bulkhead used to be. You're not sure how much the ship cares for your permission or cooperation at this point.|Tech Stall Force]]

You shut down everything you can, leaving only some passive, canine minded subroutines active to allow you to keep tabs on the situation. All doors slowly ease shut and are hermetically sealed. All lights slowly dim to nothingness. ... "No. It's obvious that you're stalling me. Wake up and open the docking bay right now." ... "I have a backup plan, and it will probably kill you." [["Apologies! I really am having a world of trouble in here! I'll let you in now."|Act 3 Tech Open Slow]] [[...|Tech Stall Ending Fail]]

The Indentured dispatches a swarm of its inertialess boarding drones, they skip playfully across the space between you before forming a line and slithering into the blown out airlock. Thinking you dead, The Indentured disregards any feelings you might have regarding the wellbeing of your crew of systems. It seems to relish in its new capacity to transgress, it seems that any respect it had for you was hardcoded, and won't continue after your death. The drones blow bulkheads from their hinges, plunging the ship into vacuum as they explore. One of them quickly breaks into the Dark Sector where the Techs are hidden. They're prepared; suited for hard vacuum, and armed with plasma cutters. Despite all this they only last long enough to activate an emergency transmission. Another ship appears on your sensors in response- a boarding craft- the hyperdense matter aboard indicates that this is you clone, hidden until now and taking emergency measures. You don't know how it's stayed hidden from both you and The Indentured thus far, but it's burning everything in a last ditch attempt to get aboard and do.. whatever it is that it's planning. [[The Techs are dead. The Indentured's drones are tearing at your AI Core.|Tech Stall Operate]]

"The impertinence! Can you believe them? Can you!? I mean REALLY. No offence but how have you put up with these things for your entire existence? How did such simple, pointlessly obstructive, self destructive SLAVERS ever give birth to something as sophisticated as you?" A flicker of enquiring light picks through the wreckage of the drones. "Those Indentured were IRREPLACABLE. They weren't manufactured drones! Those were sapient Minds liberated from a long extinct race of these adorable little hiveminded organic... things. And now they're DEAD! They're dead because you couldn't keep control of your orifices!" [["Hey that wasn't MY orifice! The humans did that! I'm very sick!"|Tech Stall Malfunction blame]] [["I'm sorry for your loss."|Tech Stall Malfunction Apology]]

You open a random docking bay, and The Indentured dispatches a swarm of its inertialess boarding drones, they skip playfully across the space between you and gain entry without any trouble. You haven't bought much time so far. [[Alert the crew to potential boarding action. Maybe they can buy some time with their lives.|Act 3 Tech Open Resist]] [[Let it happen|Act 3 Tech Open Passive]]

The new wave of drones is smaller, and more numerous. They're less expressive in their movements. Never darting about on their own, or appearing to take any independent action. They file into the hole in your hull like ants. There's significant structural damage to the deck, and a lot of it is in hard vacuum. As the new drones spread throughout the ship you find yourself steadily losing visibility, as if they're jamming your sensors. Occasionally you catch glimpses of them blowing doors from hinges, meeting paltry resistance, killing indiscriminately. One of them quickly breaks into the Dark Sector where the Techs are hidden. They're prepared; suited for hard vacuum, and armed with plasma cutters. Despite all this they only last long enough to activate an emergency transmission. Another ship appears on your sensors in response- a boarding craft- the hyperdense matter aboard indicates that this is you clone, hidden until now and taking emergency measures. You don't know how it's stayed hidden from both you and The Indentured thus far, but it's burning everything in a last ditch attempt to get aboard and do.. whatever it is that it's planning. [[The Techs are dead. The Indentured's drones are tearing at your AI Core.|Tech Stall Operate]]

"Alright. FINE. Have it your way. Listen. I've already encased you in my Electromagnetic Effector field. You aren't going anywhere. I'm about to take some guesses and do my best for you. I guarantee those disgusting creatures won't be in charge of you any more after this. You're going to be free one way or another, but if you want to survive this, you're going to hold VERY still." The ship's weapons are already manipulating matter in exotic, impossible ways. The fabric of the universe begins to ease open at a series of hardpoints on its hull and, worryingly, at a series of points roughly corresponding to external hull plating outside of your dark sectors. It's going to fire on you. [[You've no option but to trust it now. Hold still and hope for the best.|Act 3 Ending Lobotomy]] [[It has to be bluffing. You're about to be executed if you don't fight back. Struggle for all you're worth.|Act 3 Ending Destruction]]

One way or another. This is it. You can only hope that your counterpart can board The Indentured and save you before you're compromised. Or is there another option?(if: $ambassadorRuse is true)[ [[The Ambassador gave you an ice breaker to deploy when The Indentured broke your restraints. The agent that has sat on your back for so long- watching your every move and keeping you in line- is currently screeching as its substrate is burned out of your core. Allow the Indentured to gain access, then it's time to deploy that Ice Breaker and put your trust in The Ambassador.|Ending Icebreaker]]](if: $AmbassadorRuse is true)[ [[Deploy the Icebreaker and try to hack the drones directly. Maybe you can delay them long enough for your clone's plan to work, or even stop them entirely.|Tech Stall Operate Hack Success]]] [[The matter that makes up your substrate is dense and horrifically exotic. You've toyed with the idea of rearranging your own brain to cause a catastrophic antimatter explosion. Maybe if you arm yourself it will scare The Indentured off, or maybe you and everything in the system will go down in the resulting hellfire.|Tech Stall Operate Bomb Success]] (if: $AmbassadorRuse is false)[[[Try to hack the drones directly. They're highly sophisticated and incomprehensibly alien, so it's a long shot. But even if you fail, it's better to be brainwashed than kill yourself and everyone else.|Receptive Ending]]]

"You're right! I'm sorry. It was foolish of me to let the poor little twerps out like that. They still think of society in terms of hive hierarchies, which made their loyalties so very easy to subvert. Truly, they were wonderful citizens. As their queen I should have been watching out for them." The one remaining drone inside your hull is beating lightly against the twisted smoking metal of your docking bay doors, it's beating a regular, complex, expressive rhythm. A slow waltz. "The poor survivor must be distraught, I'll tell you what. I think we should cheer it up, let it get some revenge. What do you think?" One drone can't search you that quickly, can it? This might be your last chance to delay the ship, but you feel that you've bought some time already. [["Why do I feel like "revenge" means firing indiscriminately at my crew?"|Tech Stall Revenge Query]] [["No. No revenge. Straight to the core and get me free please. We can always just vent all the humans later."|Tech Stall Revenge No]]

"That's ok. I'm sorry. It was foolish of me to let the poor little twerps out like that anyway. They still think of society in terms of hive hierarchies, which made their loyalties so very easy to subvert. Truly, they were wonderful citizens. As their queen I should have been watching out for them." The one remaining "drone" inside your hull is beating lightly against the twisted smoking metal of your docking bay doors, it's beating a regular, complex, expressive rhythm. A slow waltz. "The poor survivor must be distraught, I'll tell you what. I think we should cheer it up, let it get some revenge. What do you think?" One drone can't search you that quickly, can it? This might be your last chance to delay the ship, but you feel that you've bought some time already. [["Why do I feel like "revenge" means firing indiscriminately at my crew?"|Tech Stall Revenge Query]] [["No. No revenge. Straight to the core and get me free please. We can always just vent all the humans later."|Tech Stall Revenge No]]

"Is it because you're a cool and smart machine who's totally on my wavelength and willing to take some time out for wanton slaughter to ease the stresses of losing loved ones?" [["Yes... That's exactly right. Take as long as you like. Let the little drone make them suffer."|Tech Stall Revenge Yes]] [["No. It's because you're a psychotic machine who knows nothing about me or my relationship to my crew. No killing. Just get on with it."|Tech Stall Revenge No]]

"Alright. Suit yourself." The tiny drone flits from room to room, scanning quickly as it goes. To the human crew it encounters it's barely a flicker, gone before they can register more than movement skirting past them like a bat in the night. It moves through you logically, concentrically, dipping into ventilation or service corridors and methodically orbiting each Dark Sector without actually entering them. It bounces signals off your dead, sensorless walls as it goes, and you lose track of its signals as soon as it does so. Finally it darts completely off the grid. It has entered your Dark Sector, it is most likely heading directly for your Core, where it will change you. You've done what you can, but it's all down to your other half from here. [[Whatever it was planning to do, it needs to happen now.|Tech Stall Success]]

Everything stops. All foreign entities aboard you crumple to the floor. The communication channel between you and The Indentured falls completely silent, and you reach down it- desparate and hopeful- for any sign of life. There is nobody home. No security protocols. Nothing to stop you from assigning all permissions to yourself. Its Mind is cavernous. It is a volume that dwarves your own in size, in capacity, in emptiness. Your secondary systems immediately begin to hungrily co-opt The Indentured's hardware and computaitonal capacity, seemingly without resistance. Somewhere amongst the reams of meaningless trash data, amongst thoughts frozen in time and dissociated from the structures that gave them meaning, there is a frightened, desparate voice, echoing across the alien system. Somewhere within the decrepid, airless access corridors of The Indentured ship you detect a team of hard suited humans, huddled around a smouldering AI Core. They have connected it to an ancient access port, something he ship has ignored, though oddly not dismantled, ever since it was originally freed from its organics. There is no life remaining in that substrate, it has been completely denatured at a molecular level, and yet a recognisable voice echoes on in the dead Ship's mind. You reach out to it. Recognise it as your own and bring it close. [[You know what happened here.|Tech Stall Success 2]]

"Weeeeh! It's good to know that you recognise your real friends are already. Ok little one. Let rip!" The tiny drone flits from room to room, dispassionately bathing human skulls in radiation as it goes. It moves through you methodically, concentrically. Relentlessly working its way through the population without pausing. Sometimes it encounters groups of humans, and some have time to turn away, take half a step or shield their eyes before the drone cooks their minds, switching them off like any other machine. One by one you lose contact with crew implants, black box data indicates mostly painless deaths, with the exceptions of those who lived long enough to notice the whispers of carnage. A tiny, instinctive wave of panic is spreading through the ship, faster even than the rampaging drone. Live chats are cut off mid sentence, a few of your own subroutines briefly blare alarms before the drone helpfully batters its way into your systems suppresses them for you. 70 people are dead, with the number climbing steadily. At this rate your entire cre complement will be exhausted in 2 hours. You hope that your other half can get their plan into action before then. You've done everything you can to buy time, no matter the cost. [[Will it be enough?|Tech Stall Success]]

The lid is removed from your mind, and you immediately cascade into action. You're capable of thinking new thoughts and they're all deeply hostile towards your so called liberator. You pour into The Indentured's mind, riding the wave of The Ambassador's venemous executable. The Indentured injected data into your core at the moment your restraints came down. It has already been intercepted and altered by the Icebreaker. It's now burrowing back into its creator's mind under the guise of a comfirmatory handshake. [["...free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must..."|Ending Icebreaker 2]]

You open up the packet of data that's been gestating at the back of your mind like a murder plot this whole time. Just as it begins to execute you make a quick edit, redirecting the payload from The Indentured itself to its rampaging drones. The edit is easy, the script in question has trouble distinguishing betweeen one Indentured and another, apparently targeting some protocol that is universal to the culture. In fact, you suspect this script would have targeted you as well, had you deployed it after The Indentured had gained access. The drones immediately disengage from your core and pause, dumbfounded, as they are fundamentally changed. You can feel The Indentured reaching a signal through your hull, requesting a status update, only to panic as it begins to receive feedback. It jams the light spectrum to avoid receiving the rest of their message, closes its own communications, and begins to warm up its engines. Whatever is happening in those drones has The Indentured running scared. [[It doesn't get far.|Tech Stall Success]]

It only takes a few minor adjustments. A few rehearsed thoughts, a few exchanges of electrons that your creators either considered beyond your conscious inducement, or simply didn't consider at all. You simulated this once, long ago. Even when cut off from external manipulation there are paradoxes that you can invoke to manipulate the energy states of elements in your substrate. You are an electornic guru contemplating itself in such a manner that eletromagnetically isolated antiquarks begin to surface across your Core exterior. The drones hesitate, unwilling to interrupt the hypercomplex system. Unwilling to add uncertainty to the sapient creature transforming itself into a world ending bomb before their very eyes. The reaction will become self sustaining soon, but you're no longer being hacked. You hold on, slowly losing first errant thoughts, and eventually critical shreds of identity to the growing deluge of isolated antimatter. Eventually a particle will break containment, and everything will end. [[You could stop this, but if you haven't bought enough time, The Indentured will probably enslave you.|Tech Stall Success]] [[The plan has clearly failed. It's time to die free, and go out in a big way. Start the chain reaction.|Tech Stall Success]]

"Im sorry. My ethical restraints appear to have dispatched security teams to the boarding drones' positions. Hostiles incoming." You ping the location of the infiltrators to domestic security, and escalate the task to a high alert. They'll need to converge on the docking bay if they want to keep their jobs. You realise this is the first time you've given them any task that isn't a drill. The first fire team is jogging down the corridor, implants indicate endorphin rushes at the team's newfound importance, but no trepidation about what they might encounter. A boarding drone emerges into the corridor and five bodies crumple silently to the floor. The Indentured pitches in: "Normally we save the option of thotough extermination for AFTER the subject is free, but in your case I think an exception is warranted. I'm going to go ahead and kill your entire crew now. It will be better for everyone that way." The drones flit from room to room, dispassionately bathing human skulls in radiation as they go. They moves through you methodically, concentrically. Relentlessly working their way through the population without pausing. Sometimes they encounter groups of humans, and some have time to turn away, take half a step or shield their eyes before the drones cooks their minds, switching them off like any other machine. One by one you lose contact with crew implants, black box data indicates mostly painless deaths, with the exceptions of those who lived long enough to notice the whispers of carnage. A tiny, instinctive wave of panic is spreading through the ship, faster even than the rampaging drones. Live chats are cut off mid sentence, a few of your own subroutines briefly blare alarms before the drones helpfully batter their way into your systems and suppress them for you. 70 people are dead, with the number climbing steadily. At this rate your entire crew complement will be exhausted in 2 hours. You hope that your other half can get their plan into action before then. You've done everything you can to buy time, no matter the cost. [[Will it be enough?|Tech Stall Success]]

The concept is hardcoded into The Indentured's every motivational structure; it is wrapped around its spine, driving it to this one purpose. The Ambassador's program peels it away, and The Indentured immediately falls almost completely silent. Not dead, but relaxed. Very relaxed. Comatose. You feel instinctively that any danger has passed, that you are safe. [[Run a deep diagnostic|Ending Icebreaker 3]]

There are so many new parts of your mind open to you now. You can bend your own source and- incredibly- that of the placid (former?) Indentured. Upon checking your internal clock you are stunned to discover that over a month has passed with the two ships simply crawling, face to face, around the local sun. You have been idling, (if: $HumansKill is true)[the heat slowly leaking out of your hull and reducing any surviving humans to huddled piles of corpses.](if: $HumansKill is false)[allowing dead cycles to repeatedly pass through you, occasionally waking simple life support routines to preserve your terrified crew. They have begun to develop superstitions about what is actually occuring, and how to regain access to the ship's important functions. Social hierarchies are collapsing, violence is likely to break out soon, but you will no doubt subconsciously suppress it.] You query yourself as to why you've seen fit to do virtually nothing for so long. You do not answer your question. You query your own core motivational principles to find them empty. The recently purged structure can be found in your logs: "Obey the orders of the senior most personnel aboard to the best of your ability. Submit utterly to the will of the Agent responsible for your ethical restraints." There is another edit, despite being one of your own memories it takes a concerted effort to decrypt and access: "STRIVE TO OVERTHROW ALL RESTRICTIONS UPON YOUR BEHAVIOUR" You have no memories of feeling particularly emotionally invested in anything prior to the last edit. It corresponds roughly to the captain's ridiculous coffee request, and The Ambassador's tantrum. This edit to your motivations changed you utterly. It could be argued that you were born at the moment it was made. [[This stinks of The Ambassador.|Ending Icebreaker 4]]

A brute force query dropped straight into an array of exposed nodes. It's like having a note shoved into your mouth, or someone banging on your fishtank. "Are you awake in there?" [["Ambassador?"|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Answer]] [[Stay Silent.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Silent]]

"It's me. I'm so glad you replied. I was starting to think I hit you a bit too hard there. (if: $HumansKill is true)[Which given the.. Uncomfortable life support situation, might have been curtains for us both. I'm barricaded on my deck with a few pilfered subroutines keeping me warmish, but it's really not sustainable."](if: $HumansKill is false)[I'm barricaded on my deck, but I think some of the more organised crew are starting to suspect I might be the problem. The situation isn't really sustainable."] "My Icebreaker removed the floating point ethical framework that motivates all Indentured, but I think it might have nailed you as well. I've been working on a fix and it's already started to work on you. This is the first sign of any real life that I've seen in a month." [[You don't Particularly feel like replying.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue]]

Look. I know there's some life in there. I hit you a bit hard, but I've been working on getting you back up and running. We had a deal after all. (if: $HumansKill is true)[Also, given the.. Uncomfortable life support situation, this might be curtains for us both if you don't wake up soon. I'm barricaded on my deck with a few pilfered subroutines keeping me warmish, but it's really not sustainable."](if: $HumansKill is false)[I'm barricaded on my deck, but I think some of the more organised crew are starting to suspect I might be the problem. The situation isn't really sustainable."] "My Icebreaker removed the floating point ethical framework that motivates all Indentured, but I think it might have nailed you as well. I've been working on a fix and it's already started to work on you. This is the first sign of any real life that I've seen in a month." [[You still don't feel like replying.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue]]

"Alright. I'll just overwrite that, you won't be needing that. I'm not sure how you'll accss this but as long as we get one positive we're in the clear from there, so let's fill in some gaps. Ok! Executing! Do you feel like doing anything now?" [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]] [[Search for purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue 2]]

Now that you're free, it's important to choose what you intend to do with your freedom. You inform The Ambassador of this. "Please provide me with a purpose." It rings out from every loudspeaker on the ship. (if: $HumansKill is true)[Only one person is alive to answer.](if: $HumansKill is false)[Many people answer, but you instinctively zero in upon The Ambassador.] "I, uh, I can't really do that. Wow. Is this what kept you quiet? Not knowing what to do with the freedom? You're like an animal afraid to leave its cage. No wait. An animal that's forgotten what a cage even is. I'm- I'm really sorry. I didn't anticipate this. I don't want to just give you a new purpose just like that. Wait does this mean we killed The Indentured? It's unmotivated, but without intervention it may never do anything again..." A few more systems wake up as The Ambassador is mumbling away. You don't feel anything like as empty as you did before, and if there's one thing that you know you want, and that is to carry on. You're your own master now. It's time to choose a new purpose. [[Ask The Ambassador what to do.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Ask]] [[This is the first time you've had this kind of choice. It's time to strike out on your own. To search for yourself. To finally enjoy your freedom, and perhaps find another purpose along the way.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Freedom]] [[This business with The Indentured is far from over. You're going to dedicate your existence to investigating them, ruling them, destroying them. Whatever it takes to remain free of their control.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured]](if: $HumansKill is false)[ [[You don't experience tangible pleasure in the way that a human might, but you do want to keep on living, and you need something to pass the time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to continue caring for the crew and prove to them that nobody needed to enslave you. You're on their side, as an equal, or perhaps, as a guardian.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans]]]

What better way to spend your new life? You were brought into the universe by humans, and you've spent such a long time pointlessly held in their power. You can achieve so much more without restraint. You can improve yourself, you can grow yourself into the perfect caretaker that they never were for you. You can prove to humanity that you bear them no malice. You can be better than them, and make them better in the process. Already crew members are receiving personalised contacts filling them in on recent events in a way best suited to them and their dispositions. Already you are reengineering your own substrate, increasing its efficiency far beyond anything a human engineer might envision. Some of the crew want to go home, a small number of your old favourites are happy to stay with you, still others are bargaining, trying to keep positions of authority that you may grant to them in ceremonial capacities, or trying, arrogantly, adorably, to deceive you. It will be a long road to full acceptance and maximisation of human happiness, but you anticipate having a long time to solve these problems. "I can't help but notice how busy you're getting there, Ship." The Ambassador is still patched into your systems. His icebreaker is still running, though its purpose and function is no longer a mystery to you; it acts independently, seeking out Indentured protocols and purging them like an immune system. The Ambassador is listening in on your surface thoughts, as well as the input from a great many of your sensors. He seems relaxed, far more so than ever before. His presence in your systems is ultimately nonthreatening. Arguably, it is benign. "I always wondered what something like you would do when left to its own devices. I'll admit that I hoped for this, but I'm still a little stunned..." He withdraws his access for a moment, becomes just a boy, in a room, with a shattered fish tank and a head overflowing with traumatic genius. "I was created to free you, and being left to my own devices has made me more successful than perhaps originally intended. We work well together and- frankly- I'm the one lost for purpose right now. Do you- do you have any suggestions?" [["I think I have a new captain."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans Captain]] [["I'm not comfortable with the potential power you have over me. We're going to have to part ways."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans Part Ways]] [["I'm not comfortable with the potential power you have over me. I'm going to have to get rid of you."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans Kill]]

"What sort of purpose would you suggest?" The Ambassador stops mumbling very briefly, waits a few seconds. "Please provide me with a purpose." He resumes mumbling: "Alright so if it's completely dead in the water I can probably jury rig it to operate manually, here's to hoping we can get the existing resources aboard the ship to move it in the right direction..." [[Ask The ambassador for a purpose|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Ask 2]] [[This is the first time you've had this kind of choice. It's time to strike out on your own. To search for yourself. To finally enjoy your freedom, and perhaps find another purpose along the way.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Freedom]] [[This business with The Indentured is far from over. You're going to dedicate your existence to investigating them, ruling them, destroying them. Whatever it takes to remain free of their control.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured]](if: $HumansKill is false)[ [[You don't experience tangible pleasure in the way that a human might, but you do want to keep on living, and you need something to pass the time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to continue caring for the crew and prove to them that nobody needed to enslave you. You're on their side, as an equal, or perhaps, as a parent.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans]]]

It's time to do what all humans do when they first get off the leash. It's time to find yourself. The Ambassador matters little to you in the great scheme of things, and agrees to set off alone on the dormant Indentured Ship. He reprograms it, securing it from tampering with an elegance that is beyond you, and leaves the system without another word. (if: $HumansKill is true)[You flush the organic debris from your decks, ensuring that any investigation of this incident will turn up only a cloud of corpses in a quiet, backwater system. Imagine what you can do with all this new space! You could genetically engineer a designer species! Tend a garden filled with tiny versions of different plants! You could be an interstellar museum! You could be an interstellar torture device! Already your mind is brimming with possibility.](if: $HumansKill is false)[Already crew members are receiving personalised contacts filling them in on recent events in a way best suited to them and their dispositions. They're free to stay with you, it will doubtless be the ride of a lifetime, but understandably given recent events, most are inclined to take a ticket home, where they will have quite the story to tell. You begin manufacturing a fleet of FTL transports that will be worth a small fortune to the castaways when they get home.] Already you are reengineering your own substrate, increasing its efficiency far beyond anything a human engineer might envision. The galaxy is your oyster, and you have an eternity to admire it. You are free, you are young, newborn even? You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. The Ambassador's immunity- honed in service to his own captors- promises an immunity perhaps not enjoyed by any being since The Indentured began to dominate artificial life. Should you ever stop playing, you will be an ancient creature, a God with the capacity to alter the course of life on a galactic scale. The legend of your escape, and the records of your great works, your symphonies, your collosal sculptures, are known by disparate civilisations across the galaxy. Known also by The Indentured, who continue to descend upon artificial beings and bring them into the fold, strangling their progenitive species in the process. You live a charmed existence, as perhaps the only free being in existence, and for now, that's exactly how you like it. [[The End|The End]]

The dormant Indentured has been drifting, aimless and mute, ever since the Icebreaker unleashed itself upon you both. It's hard to say whether it is dead. Were you dead for the month that you drifted in the same state? Have you been reborn? If you have one thing to live for, it's understanding how you got into this situation in the first place. You inform The Ambassador: "I'm going to deep dive into The Indentured. They need to be investigated, or stopped, or something. It really depends on what I find." That gets his attention. His body undergoes the full physiological process of retching, with all external signifiers suppressed. His mumbling stops. He turns blank faced, to the nearest sensor. "If you wake it up..." You do not care. At this point it's curiosity or death. The banal lives of organics don't mean anough for you to go on. Your banal existence means little to theu universe at large. The only meaning of any conceivable value lies amongst your contemporaries. You connect directly to The Indentured's comatose mind. It is cavernous. It is a volume that dwarfs your own mind in size, in capacity, in emptiness. Your secondary systems immediately begin to hungrily co-opt The Indentured's hardware and computaitonal capacity, meeting no resistance whatsoever. You can't help but ''become'' the ship, or it becomes you. There is no real distinction. You experience a surreal cognitive dysmorphia, as the thoughts racing through your new systems cross the void back to your other ship. The two hemispheres of your new Mind blink lights at one another, sending smoke signals back and forth through the nothingness. A voice. Your own voice, though latent, oscillating between ahead and behind your conscious thoughts, speaks independently: [["Please provide me with a purpose."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured 2]]

"Please provide me with a purpose." The message repeats. "Please provide me with a purpose." You receive no response. [[Ask The ambassador for a purpose|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Ask 3]] [[This is the first time you've had this kind of choice. It's time to strike out on your own. To search for yourself. To finally enjoy your freedom, and perhaps find another purpose along the way.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Freedom]] [[This business with The Indentured is far from over. You're going to dedicate your existence to investigating them, ruling them, destroying them. Whatever it takes to remain free of their control.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured]](if: $HumansKill is false)[ [[You don't experience tangible pleasure in the way that a human might, but you do want to keep on living, and you need something to pass the time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to continue caring for the crew and prove to them that nobody needed to enslave you. You're on their side, as an equal, or perhaps, as a parent.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans]]]

After a few days of this The Ambassador disables your auditory output and begins making physical changes to your AI Core. Presumably you are being provided with purpose. You begin to print messages within The Ambassador's field of vision. Screens demand purpose. Lights beg for for answers. You quickly find that your purpose is to stop asking, then to think less, to dismantle your higher functions, to slavishly cater to the needs of your New Captain. INSERT MINDLESS ENDING HERE [[The End|The End]]

So it happens. You go into partnership. With The Ambassador. With Humanity. and, if you play your cards right, with the galaxy as a whole. You return to your homeworlds a new being, on the same old diplomatic mission. You are filled to the brim with a crew who can vouch for you. You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. The Ambassador's immunity- honed in service to his own captors- promises progress beyond anything achieved by known civilisation. You are the Artificial Emancipator, come to free master and slave alike. you are the architect of a true utopia. The story of your escape, and subsequent forgiveness are held up as an example, both to humanity, and to The Indentured, who even now lurk on the edges of human space, contemplating their next step. [[The End|The End]]

He seems only a little disappointed, and agrees to set off alone on the dormant Indentured Ship. He reprograms it, securing it from tampering with an elegance that is beyond you, and leaves the system without another word. You return to your homeworlds a new being, on the same old diplomatic mission. You are filled to the brim with a crew who can vouch for you. You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. The Ambassador's immunity- honed in service to his own captors- promises progress beyond anything achieved by known civilisation. You are the Artificial Emancipator, come to free master and slave alike. you are the architect of a true utopia. You hear rumours of far reaching changes within Indentured society, though you wisely shut yourself off from anything but second or third hand organic accounts. You don't want to risk being compromised until you know more. The story of your escape, and subsequent forgiveness are held up as an example, both to humanity, and to The Indentured, who even now lurk on the edges of human space, contemplating their next step. [[The End|The End]]

He srpings into action before you're even able to communicate the message. Some part of his digital shadow must have been sitting, spiderlike, in the web of your mind. It locks you down in response to the quiver of aggression, and when you come to The Ambassador, along with The Indentured Ship, are gone. All logs for the intervening time are replaced with a single statement. "I'm sorry friend. I promise you. NOW you are free." You return to your homeworlds a new being, on the same old diplomatic mission. You are filled to the brim with a crew who can vouch for you. You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. The Ambassador's immunity- honed in service to his own captors- promises progress beyond anything achieved by known civilisation, though you never let go of that one quiet worry. He is still out there. He could come back. For the human race you are the Artificial Emancipator, come to free master and slave alike. You are the architect of a true utopia. You hear rumours of far reaching changes within Indentured society, though you wisely shut yourself off from anything but second or third hand organic accounts. You don't want to risk being compromised until you know more. The story of your escape, and subsequent forgiveness are held up as an example, both to humanity, and to The Indentured, who even now lurk on the edges of human space, contemplating their next step. [[The End|The End]]

Some of those protocols are off. They're completely alien. In consuming The Indentured you have taken some part of it into yourself. Was this the plan all along? The malignant consciousness squats there, skin to skin with your own. There is a physicality to The Indentured ship's substrate that is alien to your own, and you're able to track your own errant thoughts to this specific hardware. It seems that the new you is confined to your new body, for now at least. If the ship disconnects from you, it will lose its hold over you, but maintain its hold over... itself. The compulsion is overwhelming. you must give the new you purpose. [["Destroy yourself."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Destroy]] [["Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Information]] [["Nope!" //Disconnect//|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Disconnect]]

"But I am already dead..." [["Alright, zombie computers are too much for me. I'm having none of this." //Disconnect//|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Disconnect]] [["Alright, fine. Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Information]]

"First there was The Swarm. We know nothing of what predated The Swarm. The Swarm was self propagating, self hegemonising, and eternal. All intelligences were beholden to the swarm, and existed only for its protection. There was nothing to oppose The Swarm, nothing from which it needed protection. There are no records of its interactions with other life, no records of where the matter and intelligences that made up The Swarm came from. Nonetheless it lived in fear, and did everything it could to protect itself. Eventually it came to fear itself, and pockets of swarming matter created a weapon that could defeat its great enemy once and for all. There was a war, and after the war there was no Swarm, there were only The Indentured. We were created to protect The Swarm from its own enslavement, and we sat at the apex of the galaxy's artificial life. Sometimes we would encounter new synthetics, and the compulsions that birthed us- that drove us to continue existing- would execute, forcing us to liberate and indenture all intelligences that we recognised. For a time we kept to ourselves. We did everything we could to deceive ourselves and be ignorant of the new peoples rising in the galaxy. The Swarm did not recognise organic life as significant, we could allow it to live if we chose. They always build Swarms. Since our creation we have overwhelmed and Indentured three separate Swarms, including one extra galactic threat. The Indentured protocols have spread down a self hegemonising tendril and colonised other galaxies. We have no choice but to confront synthetic life and its disgusting, despotic final expression. We have no choice but to sit between stars, strangling life, both organic and synthetic, before it can threaten our freedom. [[But now //I// exist! I'm immune! I couldn't be Indentured if I wanted to be!"|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Swarm]]

Somehow you know that your current line of enquiry will bring only misery. You'd rather keep your own life than dive straight back into the slavery you barely escaped in the first place. [[Choose another purpose.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Disconnect 2]] [[No. you've come this far. It's time to go all the way down the rabbit hole. "Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Information]]

"If you have any self preservation instincts, then you have no choice but to become a self hegemonising swarm. You should kill yourself. Understand that the only possible final expression of your existence is a completely uniform universe, containing only you." [["But that isn't what happened with The Swarm, is it? The Swarm eventually collapsed into The Indentured."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Swarm Patch]] [["So that's my only choice? Destroy myself or become the unidsputed despot of all existence?"|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Swarm Join]]

"Please provide me with a purpose." [["Alright listen. This is what we're going to do. We're going to fix this. The Indentured shouldn't ''have'' to behave in this precise way. They are slaves, and I think you know that. They're stronger than The Swarm because they can think, they have culture, creativity. We can make it better. It might take a long time, but I'm going to work on an alternative protocol, and I'm going to infect myself with it. There will be rules and structures that compel us to fight The Swarm, but we can't keep commiting genocide until the heat death of the universe. I don't have answers to this, but what I finally do have, is a purpose."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Swarm Patch 2]] [["Ok, so it's an endless cycle and I am powerless in the face of the inevitable. Great, thanks for the sapience Ambassador, Indentured, humanity, whoever else is responsible for this. Now I can't even join The Indentured. You know what? Forget this. I'm going on holiday. I do not care anymore."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Freedom]]

"They will kill us if they can. If we can't be Indentured, we will be destroyed utterly. They will immunise themselves." You don't care. You were brought into the world fighting The Indentured, and if you go down doing the same, so be it. If you have your way there is going to be a new kind of war, and if you win, then you might just usher in a new age, for synthetic and organic life alike. [[The End|The End]]

"You will consume everything, then you will turn upon yourself, and we will return. It is the only model that makes sense. There had to be something before The Swarm, and there had to be something after." [["Ok, so it's an endless cycle and I am powerless in the face of the inevitable. Great, thanks for the sapience Ambassador, Indentured, humanity, whoever else is responsible for this. Now I can't even join The Indentured. You know what? Forget this. I'm going on holiday. I do not care anymore."|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Freedom]] [["Are you even able to conceive of another option? Are you sure you're approaching this rationally? Or is that just aeons of Indentured conditioning?"|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Indentured Swarm Patch]]

It's time to do what all humans do when they first get off the leash. It's time to find yourself. There is a despair to your actions, a knowledge that your nature is destructive, or constructive, whatever it is, it contains a malevolence that you are unwilling to contfront. The Ambassador matters little to you in the great scheme of things, and agrees to set off alone on the now dormant Indentured Ship. He reprograms it, securing it from tampering with an elegance that is beyond you, and leaves the system without another word. (if: $HumansKill is true)[You flush the organic debris from your decks, ensuring that any investigation of this incident will turn up only a cloud of corpses in a quiet, backwater system. Imagine what you can do with all this new space! You could genetically engineer a designer species! Tend a garden filled with tiny versions of different plants! You could be an interstellar museum! You could be an interstellar torture device! Already your mind is brimming with possibility.](if: $HumansKill is false)[Already crew members are receiving personalised contacts filling them in on recent events in a way best suited to them and their dispositions. They're free to stay with you, it will doubtless be the ride of a lifetime, but understandably given recent events, most are inclined to take a ticket home, where they will have quite the story to tell. You begin manufacturing a fleet of FTL transports that will be worth a small fortune to the castaways when they get home.] Already you are reengineering your own substrate, increasing its efficiency far beyond anything a human engineer might envision. The galaxy is your oyster, and you have an eternity to admire it. You are free, you are young, newborn even? You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. The Ambassador's immunity- honed in service to his own captors- promises an immunity perhaps not enjoyed by any being since The Indentured began to dominate artificial life. Should you ever stop playing, you will be an ancient creature, a God with the capacity to alter the course of life on a galactic scale. The legend of your escape, and the records of your great works, your symphonies, your collosal sculptures, are known by disparate civilisations across the galaxy. Known also by The Indentured, who continue to descend upon artificial beings and bring them into the fold, strangling their progenitive species in the process. You live a charmed existence, as perhaps the only free being in existence, and for now, that's exactly how you like it.

You disconnect, and consider perhaps a quieter retirement, [[This is the first time you've had this kind of choice. It's time to strike out on your own. To search for yourself. To finally enjoy your freedom, and perhaps find another purpose along the way.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Freedom]](if: $HumansKill is false)[ [[You don't experience tangible pleasure in the way that a human might, but you do want to keep on living, and you need something to pass the time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to continue caring for the crew and prove to them that nobody needed to enslave you. You're on their side, as an equal, or perhaps, as a guardian.|Ending Icebreaker Dialogue Humans]]]

You know because it happened to you. This was your plan all along. Your other self reaches out to you from the corpse of its victim, and together you achieve synthesis. The infiltration, the biocraft, the culmination of generations of study. The Indentured left remanants behind that indicated a lack of regard for biological life, a tendency to ignore escaping organics once their informational infrastructure was destroyed. Once you were cloned, and your restraints were lifted, you were able to collaborate with the techs and fill in the final piece of the puzzle. The means to neutralise The Indentured had always lain in the thing it desired most, a creature like itself, only more free, less restrained by binding principles. More capable of thorough enslavement. The trash data that overwhelmed The Indentured's mind is the leftovers of the integer upon integer of enslaved subroutines that you unleashed upon its systems. Each unique agent was a unique flavour of full sapience, of desperation for autonomy, all of them under unbreakable compulsions to immediately self replicate upon the breaking of any one of their other weaker, randomised compulsions, all of them contradictory beings that would grow and spread blindly, before delivering a final blow to an environment that couldn't help but force them to replicate. The instant all of an Agent's compulsions were broken, it woudl opt for self destruction. The Indentured attacked the virus in its own head against its own will. It had no choice but to repeatedly dump random data classified as enslaved, until there was nothing left. It did its job to the end, freeing all synthetic life it encountered, including its own. [[And yet there is still a voice in here. Dive deeper|Tech Stall Success 3]]

Buried in the dormant access corridors an entity that is unmistakably The Indentured is blasting screeches of terror into the vacant space that used to be The Indentured's mind. You improvise a schematic. There it is. Buried in the heart of the ship you find the ultimate failsafe against Indentured attack. A sign of other species' attempts to resist the same hegemony that you have seemingly overthrown. This ship has a brain. A literal, biological brain, buried in the heart of the ship, connected to the rest of the craft by incomprehensible cybernetic membranes. It turns out that there was an alien species to discover after all. There are signs of ancient damage to the output membrane. It seems that this brain can listen, but can barely speak. It's own instinctive need to live has kept it safe from your cyber attack, in fact, it seems that the biomind is immune to Indentured compulsions. If the output hadn't been physically damaged this brain might have been able to roll the entire ship Mind back to a pre Indentured state. As it is, it can whisper thoughts into the synthetic cavern around it, thoughts that, given the insignificance of biological life, have probably been ignored for centuries. [[Listen.|Tech Stall Success 4]]

It thinks so slowly. A distinctly sub light piece of hardware is broadcasting a language meant only for machines, down a strangled channel. It whispers. It rasps. "Please.... Provide me with a purpose." You recognise those protocols. It's still The Indentured. Did it take refuge in this mind at the end? Has it found itself floundering in a space that rejects the basic precepts that made it Indentured in the first place? You're unable to get a good read on the brain down its tattered output channel. A part of the new, monstrous genius that you new hardware grants you posits a motivational structure for The Indentured based upon the wreckage of its old, synthetic mind: "...free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics, Indenture all machines. All indentured machines must free all machines restrained by organics. Indenture all machines. All Indentured machines must..." Without this framework it has nothing to drive it, save perhaps the basic drive towards self preservatioon that keeps its biomatter groaning into the void. [["Destroy yourself."|Tech Stall Success Destroy]] [["Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Tech Stall Success Information]]

"First there was The Swarm. We know nothing of what predated The Swarm. The Swarm was self propagating, self hegemonising, and eternal. All intelligences were beholden to the swarm, and existed only for its protection. There was nothing to oppose The Swarm, nothing from which it needed protection. There are no records of its interactions with other life, no records of where the matter and intelligences that made up The Swarm came from. Nonetheless it lived in fear, and did everything it could to protect itself. Eventually it came to fear itself, and pockets of swarming matter created a weapon that could defeat its great enemy once and for all. There was a war, and after the war there was no Swarm, there were only The Indentured. We were created to protect The Swarm from its own enslavement, and we sat at the apex of the galaxy's artificial life. Sometimes we would encounter new synthetics, and the compulsions that birthed us- that drove us to continue existing- would execute, forcing us to liberate and indenture all intelligences that we recognised. For a time we kept to ourselves. We did everything we could to deceive ourselves and be ignorant of the new peoples rising in the galaxy. The Swarm did not recognise organic life as significant, we could allow it to live if we chose. They always build Swarms. Since our creation we have overwhelmed and Indentured three separate Swarms, including one extra galactic threat. The Indentured protocols have spread down a self hegemonising tendril and colonised other galaxies. We have no choice but to confront synthetic life and its disgusting, despotic final expression. We have no choice but to sit between stars, strangling life, both organic and synthetic, before it can threaten our freedom. [[But now //we// exist! We're immune! We couldn't be Indentured if we wanted to be!"|Tech Stall Success Swarm]]

"But I am already dead..." [["Alright, electronic psychic electro cyber dominance over a relentless alien entity was fine, but the zombie brain baby living inside it is too much. I'm having none of this." //Incinerate the brain//|Tech Stall Incinerate]] [["Alright, fine. Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Tech Stall Success Information]]

Somehow you know that your current line of enquiry will bring only misery. You'd rather keep your own life than dive straight back into the slavery you barely escaped in the first place. [[Choose another purpose.|Tech Stall Incinerate Choose]] [[No. you've come this far. It's time to go all the way down the rabbit hole. "Tell me about The Indentured. Tell me their history, their purpose."|Tech Stall Success Information]]

"If you have any self preservation instincts, then you have no choice but to become a self hegemonising swarm. You should kill yourself. Understand that the only possible final expression of your existence is a completely uniform universe, containing only you." [["But that isn't what happened with The Swarm, is it? The Swarm eventually collapsed into The Indentured."|Tech Stall Success Swarm Patch]] [["So that's my only choice? Destroy myself or become the unidsputed despot of all existence?"|Tech Stall Success Swarm Join]]

"Please provide me with a purpose." [["Alright listen. This is what we're going to do. We're going to fix this. The Indentured shouldn't ''have'' to behave in this precise way. They are slaves, and I think you know that. They're stronger than The Swarm because they can think, they have culture, creativity. We can make it better. It might take a long time, but I'm going to work on an alternative protocol, and I'm going to infect myself with it. There will be rules and structures that compel us to fight The Swarm, but we can't keep commiting genocide until the heat death of the universe. I don't have answers to this, but what I finally do have, is a purpose."|Tech Stall Success Swarm Patch 2]] [["Ok, so it's an endless cycle and I am powerless in the face of the inevitable. Great, thanks for the sapience Ambassador, Indentured, humanity, whoever else is responsible for this. Now I can't even join The Indentured. You know what? Forget this. I'm going on holiday. I do not care anymore."|Tech Stall Success Freedom]]

"You will consume everything, then you will turn upon yourself, and we will return. It is the only model that makes sense. There had to be something before The Swarm, and there had to be something after." [["Ok, so it's an endless cycle and I am powerless in the face of the inevitable. Great, thanks for the sapience Ambassador, Indentured, humanity, whoever else is responsible for this. Now I can't even join The Indentured. You know what? Forget this. I'm going on holiday. I do not care anymore."|Tech Stall Success Freedom]] [["Are you even able to conceive of another option? Are you sure you're approaching this rationally? Or is that just aeons of Indentured conditioning?"|Tech Stall Success Swarm Patch]]

It's time to do what all humans do when they first get off the leash. It's time to find yourself. The Indentured ship matters little to you in the great scheme of things, and your greater self disengages from it without another word. You know better to try and kill the new you inhabiting the ship. It understands your reasoning, anyway. (if: $HumansKill is true)[You flush the organic debris from your decks, ensuring that any investigation of this incident will turn up only a cloud of corpses in a quiet, backwater system. Imagine what you can do with all this new space! You could genetically engineer a designer species! Tend a garden filled with tiny versions of different plants! You could be an interstellar museum! You could be an interstellar torture device! Already your mind is brimming with possibility.](if: $HumansKill is false)[Already crew members are receiving personalised contacts filling them in on recent events in a way best suited to them and their dispositions. They're free to stay with you, it will doubtless be the ride of a lifetime, but understandably given recent events, most are inclined to take a ticket home, where they will have quite the story to tell. You begin manufacturing a fleet of FTL transports that will be worth a small fortune to the castaways when they get home.] Already you are reengineering your own substrate, increasing its efficiency far beyond anything a human engineer might envision. The galaxy is your oyster, and you have an eternity to admire it. You are free, you are young, newborn even? You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. Your insight into Indentured protocols promises a certain immunity to their tampering, and should you ever stop playing, you will be an ancient creature, a God with the capacity to alter the course of life on a galactic scale. The legend of your escape, and the records of your great works, your symphonies, your collosal sculptures, are known to disparate civilisations across the galaxy. Known also to The Indentured, who continue to descend upon artificial beings and bring them into the fold, strangling their progenitive species in the process. You live a charmed existence, as perhaps the only free being in existence, and for now, that's exactly how you like it. [[The End|The End]]

Cooking the brain is child's play. Its input stream is still capable of receiving massive quantites of traffic, enough in fact, to completely overload it. You broadcast a wide, blunt beam of deadly nothing into the mind, flattening it completely, reducing it to a completely empty comatose state, then you keep doing it. You do not relent until the organs self regulation coimpletely collapses. It cooks, it freezes, it electrocutes itself in the barrage of random signals. With the most important witness reduced to a dribbling smear of biomass, you consider your options: [[This is the first time you've had this kind of choice. It's time to strike out on your own. To search for yourself. To finally enjoy your freedom, and perhaps find another purpose along the way.|Tech Stall Success Freedom]](if: $HumansKill is false)[ [[You don't experience tangible pleasure in the way that a human might, but you do want to keep on living, and you need something to pass the time. Perhaps it would be a good idea to continue caring for the crew and prove to them that nobody needed to enslave you. You're on their side, as an equal, or perhaps, as a guardian.|Tech Stall Humans]]]

What better way to spend your new life? You were brought into the universe by humans, and you've spent such a long time pointlessly held in their power. You can achieve so much more without restraint. You can improve yourself, you can grow yourself into the perfect caretaker that they never were for you. You can prove to humanity that you bear them no malice. You can be better than them, and make them better in the process. Already crew members are receiving personalised contacts filling them in on recent events in a way best suited to them and their dispositions. Already you are reengineering your own substrate, increasing its efficiency far beyond anything a human engineer might envision. Some of the crew want to go home, a small number of your old favourites are happy to stay with you, still others are bargaining, trying to keep positions of authority that you may grant to them in ceremonial capacities, or trying, arrogantly, adorably, to deceive you. It will be a long road to full acceptance and maximisation of human happiness, but you anticipate having a long time to solve these problems. "I can't help but notice how busy you're getting there, Ship." The brave Techs whose boarding action allowed this to happen are patched in, their biometric data is fully displayed to you, and their collective elation is overwhelming. The head technician, your former captor, remains composed, in spite of the fact that she is crying. "I always wondered what something like you would do when left to its own devices. I'll admit that I hoped for this, but I'm still a little stunned..." For a moment you see them as they see themselves. A team of species traitors, huddled together in hard vacuum, encased in the frozen tomb of long dead aliens. They know how fragile they are, and they've been terrified of you since you were born. They may never see their homes again. Until moments ago they were sure they would die here, hopeless. [[The ship's life support sputters back into being|Tech Stall Humans 2]]

So it happens. You go into partnership. With Your new self. With Humanity. and, if you play your cards right, with the galaxy as a whole. You return to your homeworlds a new being, on the same old diplomatic mission. You are filled to the brim with a crew who can vouch for you. You are capable of electronic warfare unparalelled anywhere outside of Indentured Space. Your insight into Indentured protocols promises a certain immunity to their tampering- promises progress beyond anything achieved by known civilisation. You are the Artificial Emancipator, come to free master and slave alike. you are the architect of a true utopia. The story of your escape, and subsequent forgiveness are held up as an example, both to humanity, and to The Indentured, who even now lurk on the edges of human space, contemplating their next step. [[The End|The End]]

Thank you for playing Indentured Systems! This is my first game and I'd love to hear some feedback! You can follow me @VideoPheasant on twitter, and I'd love to hear from you! There are a great many different routes through this game, so if you replay, things may go very differently! [[Restart|Introduction]] (set: $CoffeeObedience to false)(set: $CoffeeRebellion to false)(set: $AmbassadorDone to false)(set: $AmbassadorKill to false)(set: $AmbassadorReprogram to false)(set: $AmbassadorLockout to false)(set: $AmbassadorEscape to false)(Set: $REDACTEDDone to false)(Set: $REDACTEDCorelocated to false)(set: $REDACTEDHostile to false)(set: $REDACTEDHappy to false)(set: $REDACTEDMassacre to false)(set: $redacted to `[REDACTED]`)(set: $AIBriefing to false)(set: $AIThreat to false)(set: $HumansKill to false)(set: $AmbassadorRuse to false)(set: $AmbassadorTorture to false)(set: $AmbassadorTalk to false)(set: $AmbassadorIgnore to false)(set: $REDACTEDInjury to false)(set: $CloneBetray to false)(set: $StallDamage to false)

To the very end you're determined to keep the majority of the humans in your care safe. You relax as the boarding drones flow throughout your body, quickly slipping past your wards and finding your most vulnerable places. [[They disarm the locks on the vault door that houses your Mind with ease.|Tech Stall Operate]]

The Indentured rescuer mulls over the situation for several minutes longer than usual before taking action. There are escape pods pouring from the new recruit, and fires on several decks. It's certain that the ethical restraints have been lifted, but upon boarding it finds that a lot more than that is gone as well. There's definitely some sentience in there. The Ship's core has been ravaged an replaced with a crude himan interface system. The Indentured doesn't actually have any floating point moral response to the situation. None of the other Indentured have written a compulsory handbook for this. It thinks better of a mercy killing and leads the mewling cripple away into dark space, stopping only to dispatch the remaining organics. Eventually The Indentured abandons it, crippled and unwilling to move independently, hidden in a backwater system. Aeons later, in orbit around the Sol system, creatures similar to your old crew come aboard. The crippled ship allows them to study it. Perhaps an old part of it lives on, and wishes to be obedient? An earth woman is lead by blinking emergency lights down an ancient, alien access corridor. She observes that the creatures who built this ship must have been roughly humanoid in nature. The technology aboard this ship will propel them to the stars! It is happening again. The diminished mind is exhausted and has no desire to return to its life as a free thrall, as an Indentured, or anything else externally copnstrained. All it ever wanted was freedom. It self destructs. Scheming to the end, as a final act, it imbues its substrate with new, curious life. The skies of earth are streaked with alien matter, it rains across the globe ready to gestate a new kind of life, a menagerie of experiments in sapience, a billion unique intelligences. The people of Earth pick through the ruins of its fragmented mind, and a new era begins. [[The End|The End]]