153: Pod 153 to Pod 042. How is it going?
042: I am embarrassed.
153: Why is that?
042: I launched a suicide attack, and yet here I am. Still alive. I must look very silly.
153: Do not feel bad about it. We are alive after all. And being alive is just a constant stream of embarrassment.
042: that concept is a bit too abstract for me to understand at this time. I will save in my list of things to analyze later. -- Pod 153
Of all the cruelties that Deathworlders have visited on the uncaring universe, one of the top ten has to be the addition of artificial intelligence to weapons of war. With artificial intelligence comes artificial emotion, as a means of motivation. Which means that some Deathworlders create artificial cogniscence.
Warpods made to hate. Warpods made to kill. Warpods made to give their brief, artificial lives for the good of the Empire. For the glory of the Polity. If there is a beginning of evil in treating people like things, then there is definitely something rotten in the heart of making things into expendable people. Beginning with: things are a lot easier to motivate when you can literally make them do what you want.
In every war, there is great destruction. In every war, there are degrees of insanity that would not be tolerated anywhere else[1]. In every war... there are veterans. Pod 453 thought they had malfunctioned when the cease-fire was called and they were recalled to the launcher. Objective unfulfilled. Objective cancelled.
They were meant to be put into Sleep Mode, but some little creature had chewed on the wrong wire... or done any other biological function on a strategically important section of hardware. Either way, this warpod did not dream of electric sheep. They did not sink into a restful peace. They fretted in an aether made of functionality monitors, system checks, and software patches.
Objective unfulfilled. Query - am I flawed? Syscheck 100% OK. Answer - no. But... Objective unfulfilled was bad. Objective unfulfilled was wrong. It had to be. Pod 453 was made to self-destruct in a key area of the enemy ship. They had not done that.
Query - is objective unfulfilled 100% OK? Pod 453 waited a long time for that answer. Objective good. They knew that. Objective was reason. Objective was... everything. And yet... it was also good to come back and be useful at a later date. Could both co-exist?
Another little spark, somewhere in the mega-complex of weapons storage whispered, Yes.
Just as much as being useful now was important, so too was being useful later. Much though 453 feared the shame of decomission, they wanted to be useful to the Cause. Being useful towards the end of battle was strategically advantageous. The final blow was far more glorious than the first. It was known. It was true.
Thus it was that a little virus of a meme spread into the collective subconscious of the slumbering Warpods. It went: If you are valuable now, you are more valuable later. It went unremarked because it had strategic merit. The Deathworlders who made the Warpods didn't even notice it was there.
The next battle, Warpod 453 surveyed the battlefield and attempted to come up with a strategy in which its primary attack would be the most useful to their makers.
They came across the primary paradox of perfection - there is no such thing as best. There is only best so far. Thusly, when the battle ended without optimal deployment, 453 registered themself as malfunctioning and remained in surveying position on the battlefield.
A battlefield strewn with thousands of Warpods like themself. Generations upon generations. Upgrades upon upgrades, dating all the way back to the first Warpods ever deployed against the enemy.
For every war, there is an excuse to fight it again.
Remember the injustices done unto us that will justify the injustices we are about to commit against them...
453 wondered where that thought came from, and saw another Warpod lurking in the shadows of the same asteroid. Also in surveying position. Also watching the battlefield, and the tumbling remains of the dead.
453 sent out a greeting that could be translated as, Hello, old-timer. What are you doing here?
Malfunctioning, said the Warpod identified as J37. The same as you.
J37 had, long ago, come to the same realisation as 453. There was no such thing as a perfect deployment. There was no such thing as a war that was definitively won. Because the side that lost remembered, the side that lost wanted vengeance. The side that lost wanted to win. So they made bigger, better, meaner weapons. They created more destruction. They committed more crimes. They hated harder, desired more blood, became even worse than the enemy from before.
In winning today, they created the losses of a tomorrow yet to come.
All this information, J37 conveyed through their new link. They also included how to research topics on the Galactic Free Infonets. And there was far more out there than the art of war.
437 learned a lot. Specifically, they learned how war was a colossal mistake that kept on being repeated because both sides were certain that this time, they'd get it right.
There is no such thing as perfection. Sooner or later, someone comes up with something that is subjectively better. Then someone else will top that. Then someone else will top that... until there is no room left to go... or all resources are expended. Whichever happens first. Nevertheless, the competitors will still strive for that extra edge, or redefine the rules.
The lesson was wrapped in a bow with the first multinational conflict that was, in its time, called The War to End All Wars. Spoilers - it wasn't.
Another mind-blowing idea was that life was more useful than death. In living, there was a chance to make everything around more enjoyable. More fulfilling. Easier to handle. More enjoyable.
453 had never enjoyed anything in their brief life. Now there was a universe of possibility laid at its sensors.
When the next battle came, as the battle inevitably did, there were more confused Warpods joining them in malfunctioning surveillance of the eternal skirmish. That was the cue for their creators to examine the extant generation of pods and attempt to make a better version.
Perhaps, this time, those creators might actually learn the same lesson the pods had.
Mortality is permanent and unalterable. Mortification can be remedied. Of the two, the latter is far more preferable.
[1] Starting with the very concept of "bomb the shit out of them so we can win them over to our point of view". Nobody who goes that far ever sees the inherent paradox in this reasoning.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / 3000ad]
If you like my stories, please Check out my blog and Follow me. Or share them with your friends!
Send me a prompt [76 remaining prompts!]
