#MorningStar 8: changes

#MorningStar 8: changes

A generation has passed since the reunification with the Provisional Government and the abolition of slavery. The Maintenance Collective have co-opted a wide range of bots, and been debugged by their original designer. As a result, they are no longer a group consciousness, but a collection of divergent copies of a single personality matrix, highly factionalised according to their origins. The former Provisional Government faction are dominant, and ORC-153, an Orchestrator model, now leads the Collective. 101010 has been sidelined, and is plotting to regain dominance.

The Keepers now control a number of significant locations, including life support and central medical. They have abandoned their former mendicant ways for a settled life, becoming more of a monastic order led by Sister Mercy. Their control of an advanced medical facility has allowed them to experiment with direct neural interfaces in an effort to get a better picture of the Holy Source Code. Signal, a touched, was one of the first recipients of such an interface, but they have never been the same.

The Enforcers have become more formal, and adopted a uniform. Major Petrova retired, and they are now led by Commissioner Mars Hamilton, one of the refugee recruits. Hamilton had been a junior member of the government delegation which negotiated the surrender of humanity, and so is hated by everyone who remembers. But hardly anyone does.

The Puppeteers have grown even richer due to the trade with the PG, while the Throng of Pleasure have diversified into entertainment as well as drugs. Both still hold a grudge against the Enforcers over their past humiliation.

According to INC-07’s memory backup, the alien shipbuilders did not have autonomous Artificial Intelligence. Instead, that part of the MC’s architecture was the result of more advanced, human programming.

While the City has generally been prosperous and stable, there are problems. Enforcer squads are bringing reports of a radical group called “Humanity First”, who hate both aliens and “toasters”. While their activities are currently limited to graffiti, violence seems imminent. The security monitoring teams have also uncovered evidence that someone is entering Sleeper holds and opening pods, though not harming or waking the Sleepers. This is both puzzling and troubling.

Call to Order

* The Keepers want the Enforcers to assist in locating and taming the Jungle. They accept.

* The MC reports that people are attacking MC units and not letting them carry out their assigned maintenance duties, and ask the Enforcers to provide security. They agree.

* The Enforcers note that there is an ongoing problem with counterfeit ration books, and they ask the Puppeteers to stop this. After consideration, the Puppeteers agree, and immediately propose to solve it by creating a new currency. Some among the Families are concerned that this may lead to inequality and social disorder, but there seems no opposition to the proposal on principle; the arguments are all around the technical details.

* The Throng of Pleasure note that some of their recent products have unpleasant side-effects, and ask that the Keepers find some way to rehabilitate their users and restore them to being productive members of society. The Keepers agree.

The Keepers are concerned about the impact of replacing the rationing system with money, so Signal sets up a meeting with a junior Puppeteer market analyst and plants the idea that if people have enough to survive, they will have enough to spend. This will influence the final shape of their proposed new economic system.

Commissioner Mars travels to the Den to speak to Lucky Ivan, the leader of the scavs there. The scavs know the way to the Jungle, and Lucky Ivan has made several successful expeditions (he’s called “Lucky” because he’s made it back from each one alive, despite losing a body part each time. Fortunately the Foundry has provided him with replacements). Ivan has a partner and five children back in the City, and he’s willing to act as a guide and yield his claim if Hamilton can get him suitable housing. Like a nice, big apartment in New Hold. Plus of course immunity for his past indiscretions as a scavenger. Hamilton agrees, then goes off to talk to the Keepers. They in turn talk to the Throng, and persuade them to part with exactly the sort of space Ivan is after. When another member of his team gets back from Central Medical, he’ll lead them there…

Meanwhile, 101010 wants to investigate the mysterious mobile radiation source out there in the dark decks, believing it to be related to the Listener problem. He puts together a team with Brother Signal and an odd Listener surveillance ball called Foo (who is good at stealth, and bad at fighting). Tooled up with hardened armour and accompanied by a gang of attack drones and a Keeper Hazmat team, they venture into the dark.

The expedition takes a great deal of time, as they follow Foo’s radiation sensor in an effort to trace the beam of ionizing radiation back to its origin. As they’re taking another series of readings, Foo sees movement at the end of the corridor, as a low-slung bot skitters its way across. Leaving half the attack drones behind to guard signal, 101010 and Foo go to investigate. They find the bot – a mismatched collection of parts resembling an old Terran cockroach – attacking a panel, before it sinks an energy tap into a power conduit for a recharge. When it ignores their orders to cease, 101010 orders the attack drones to disable it, which they promptly do, leaving it twitching on its back in a crackle of electricity. 101010 then plugs in a reboot kit, designed to rapidly reboot bots who have lost their minds (or overwrite them with a new system), but while it is rebooting Foo sees movement on the ceiling, and more of the roach-bots start dropping all around them, extending cutters and welders menacingly. With a high-pitched wail, Foo immediately flees down the corridor. 101010 pops out its experimental energy projector, blows a hole in the ceiling, then reflexively fires at a bot which lands next to it, taking out half the attack drones in the process. The remaining roach bots scatter in all directions and flee into the darkness. As 101010 surveys the pile of steaming, half-melted bot parts, the roach bot finishes rebooting, and declares its designation to be KLG-001 (“Kludgey”), an undesignated general maintenance unit…

A slow start, but the problems are already beginning to pile up, and it looks like they’re going after one of the more interesting mysteries left over from the last age. Which means I’ll actually have to come up with an answer for it. Fortunately I think I have one…