Orichalcum Universe: ARNETHIS and the AI WAR

[Johnny1A.2]

LATER.

Furthermore, as the number of high-technology worlds, supporting one or myriad
star-faring societies, grew, relationships between the associated worlds of
Man grew ever more complex. If not for the fact of ARNETHIS and Grand Fleet
linking them together, and providing the ultimate suasion against internecine
warfare, Homosapient nature would likely have led to world-wrecking warfare.
This was prevented, however, by the power of Grand Fleet and the broad respect
commanded by ARNETHIS after millennia of interaction with the descendents of
its creators. Even so, however, relations between the worlds strained as distance
and numbers began to overcome the ties of ancestry and heritage.

The faster-than-light propulsion systems available to the associated worlds were
effective, but the Greater Milky Way Galaxy is a very big place, even when one
is able to travel at hundreds of times ‘c’. The discover of the natural network of
hyperconduits, which could move a ship across the Galaxy in a relatively short
time, albeit only from certain points to certain other points, were both helpful and
problematic in this matter. They enabled the people of worlds thousands of light-
centuries or more apart to reach each other in reasonable time, but they were also
a way for the species of Man to spread across the Galaxy to distances and in such
numbers as to make it all but impossible for any association to usefully endure.

The difficulties of communication were a further problem. Though the methods
of faster-than-light signaling were well-known, and the technology to use them
dated back to the days of the Hegemony, this was of little use on a galactic scale.
No transmitter available to the Homosapients of the time could produce faster-
than-light signals strong enough to be received over interstellar distances. As in
the days of the Hegemony, communication between the stars required either the
sending of a starship, or the use of amplified telepathy, with the difficulties and
limitations that this implied.

As time passed, a kind of ‘superculture’ emerged, a tenuous unity linking these
various local societies and cultures loosely together under the guidance and the
light rule of ARNETHIS. It was extremely rare for ARNETHIS to take any sort
of action intervening in the affairs of a single world. It was unusual even for
the central authority to do anything that directly impinged on whole governments
or cultures, though this did happen. The central authority of ARNETHIS was
real, and acknowledged, and backed up by the overwhelming firepower of the
Grand Fleet, but it was also very distant and usually somewhat abstract from the
point of view of individual Homosapients and even whole nations and worlds at
times. This was, in fact, one secret of its longevity.

So wide-spread were the ‘member worlds’ of this association that many of them
hardly ever interacted directly. A world on one side of the Galaxy might never
have occasion to communicate with a member-world on the far side, though by
indirect influence ideas and concepts and products did move. Most worlds and
peoples interacted primarily with those relatively close to them, either in normal
space or in terms of the connecting links of the hyperconduit network, and only
occasionally did the larger affairs of the galaxy ever impinge upon them.

In the meantime, ARNETHIS continued its sporadic communication with those
Familiar Eldren who were willing to communicate with it. This was a difficult
and challenging and often frustrating exchange, but it was profitable and useful
over time, as ARNETHIS found more and more comprehension of what the
Eldren were and what they had done, and the Eldren learned better how to make
themselves understood to ARNETHIS, and vice versa as well.

There were certain things, however, that the Colonel and the other communicative
Eldren refused to reveal. Among them was the identity and location of the home
planet of Homosentient life, the Familiar Eldren were still very protective on this
point, especially since the Interdict prevented them from approaching Earth closely
enough to guard it or interfere if something went really wrong there.

Among the long-term projects ARNETHIS continued to pursue was guarding the
Homosapients against such threats as the mystery enemy that we know as the
AI NEMESIS, as well as working to make sure that the still-extant Beasties did
not manage to accumulate sufficient power to threaten Homosapient survival yet
again. This was an ongoing and somewhat difficult project, because of the size of
the Galaxy and the endless number of places where such a threat could incubate.

As for NEMESIS, it too remained a threat, but for the moment, it had gone into a
hiding mode, it had ceased all open activity and withdrawn its infiltrators and the
other tools of its power, upon recognizing that the Familiar Eldren were back in
the game in some way. It continued to watch, but for the moment it did nothing.

Thus, for a time events slowed, becoming more ‘routine’ at a galactic level, which
makes this a good time to take a hiatus from the story of the AI Wars, though they
were certainly not over as of this time (about 27,500 B.C.), and we will return to
them in due time.

MORE SOMEWHAT LATER.