A Sinner's Eden-Chapter 194 - EVO
***Tirnanog, Moonbase***
***Magnus***
“Do you have any clue how vexing it is to find out that this blasted facility exists? And that only after I already did all the prototyping for my SMDs by hand?” I shook my fists in frustration. “I feel like some caveman who was sharpening a stick with a stone when a lathe stood right next door, ready to be used!”
“You are exaggerating…” Astra commented, not truly taking part in my plight.
“Still,” I continued, needing her to understand my suffering. “I was like a clockmaker of old, painfully manipulating gears and magnets, only to find out that digital clocks are a thing!”
Gilbert raised an eyebrow at the comparison. He was giving Astra and me a tour through the extensive facility. I had decided to invade his temporary office and didn’t stop asking questions until he finally spilt the beans about his newest project. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮
“Lad, it’s good to work out the details personally instead of having a finished workflow spit out a completed product, only to then find out that it doesn’t work and that you have to go on a quest of ‘whack a mole’ to find out where among the dozens or hundreds of assembly steps you went wrong,” Gilbert replied while we watched a set of biomechanical arms assemble one of the larger components which belonged to Tirnanog’s weather control system.
The whole facility was just a small part of the maintenance system, which was disguised as Tirnanog’s moon. The 3D printing factory, as Gilbert liked to call it, wasn’t a traditional 3D printer as one would imagine it. Though it got its name from the central component which stood at its heart.
It would be more accurate to say that the whole installation was a fully automated robotic factory which had the capacity to assemble the components for most devices our alien opponents could dream up.
At its centre was a molecular printer with the ability to assemble complex electric IC’s at the molecular level. It was like a wet science dream, capable of raising Tirnanog’s technology beyond Earth’s level. Not within decades, but within years if applied properly.
That was… always assuming that Gilbert managed to get it to work for us.
“Why aren’t we already building spaceships?” I asked. “Fuck fighting the aliens! If we could load our whole population into a fleet of ships and bugger off. The galaxy is vast! Even if their little experiment went terribly wrong, nobody can tell me they would invest the resources to search for what they regard as a few bacteria that escaped their Petri dish to another part of their laboratory. Why even bother?”
Gilbert coughed. “Well, because a spaceship might be a tad bit more complicated than what my people are capable of. So is this machine.” He gestured at our surroundings, indicating the automated manufacturing facility as a whole. “We are in the process of building a copy, but it is an arduous process. I expect it to take months, even if we utilise the capabilities of the already existing factories on this moon.”
“Why not use this one?” Astra asked.
“Because it is alien tech!” Gilbert replied, sounding almost offended. “If we have no clue about how it works and what it does, what would prevent it from building little traps into all the devices we have it build for us? What if we have it build us a grand industry based on this marvellous machine, only to find out later on that all the enemy has to do is flip a switch once they arrive at our gates? As long as we don’t understand it, this device could be a Djinn in a bottle, fulfilling every wish we ask of it. At the very least, I want to find out how to wipe the software it runs on.”
His expression darkened. “But that’s only the best-case scenario. It could also be a Pandora’s box.”
I crossed my arms and studied the robot arms, which were finishing the assembly of some kind of solar panel. At last, I sighed. “I must admit that this is a valid concern. In the heat of the moment, I didn’t consider the potential dangers.”
Astra tilted her head. “If this machine poses a threat to us, wouldn’t the alien curator of this facility have ‘activated’ it? And couldn’t we ask Gaia to help us with the controls as she did with the Biotanks and the weather controls?”
I scratched the back of my head. “You were there when we encountered the alien. It wasn’t like we gave it much chance to do anything. Plus, the worry about booby-traps is legit. In the case of the biotanks and the teleporters, the dangers should be minor, since the Thich have been messing with that technology for decades. And with the weather control system, I had Gaia looking out for me. In hindsight, we probably shouldn’t have played around with that either.”
“The risk was minor, compared to this thing.” Gilbert shrugged. “Gaia picked my brain before she helped you.”
I drew my eyebrows together. “She did? And why should the risk be minor?”
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Gilbert stroked his bearded chin while he thought for a moment to formulate his reply. “The best way to put it is that this facility, and the alien’s control centre, as well as its equipment, follow two different design philosophies. It is like they were made by two different technologies? No, let’s say, designers. The used technology is the same, but the devices follow two completely different design philosophies.”
He circled his finger in the air. “The control disc for the teleporter sphere, as well as the devices the alien used, have very little ‘complexity’ regarding their function. Don’t get me wrong, they are all marvellous pieces of tech, but it is like this alien overseer who was guarding this facility didn’t have a lot of imagination, or the need for it. If you paid attention, that accounts for most of the moon. Everything the alien personally interacted with. You flip a switch or turn a dial, and something happens that is directly linked to this ‘one’ interaction. There is nothing that could change what the switch is for. Tell me, would a human nowadays implement the teleportation sphere’s control disc as it is?”
I tilted my head from side to side. “Well, I do remember seeing old telephone dials when I went to a museum back on Earth. Feels like a lifetime ago.”
Gilbert made a dismissive gesture. “Firehorn dung! That’s because the technology was so limited back then. Nowadays, given the choice, nobody would do that. Everyone would prefer a smartphone which does a hundred different things. A handheld touchscreen which runs the control app, but can be used in a dozen other ways. Theoretically, the alien technology I studied so far would easily accomplish the same level of complexity regarding software. The teleportation sphere, the biotanks, the command centre, the weather control system. Everything I looked at had one control input, which translated to one function. There are ways of remote control, but there is still no way to ‘reprogram’ anything. The logic is hardwired all the way.”
He turned around and spread out his arms. “This thing, no. This entire manufacturing facility has a fully functioning computer system controlling it.”
“Out of necessity?” Astra suggested. “Maybe the other controls are designed in this way for security reasons.”
Gilbert shook his head. “No. The biotanks easily outdo this facility when it comes to needed complexity, and they still rely on hardwired logic for the most part. The Thich were the ones who added all those control panels so they could use the existing infrastructure without a deep understanding of DNA manipulation and biology. I would rather say that this factory was built by someone else, then handed to the overseer alien to accomplish his task, who then used it to build everything else.”
I slowly nodded. “It would make sense, in a way?”
Astra and Gilbert looked at me questioningly.
I shrugged. “Well, when we met the alien, it was kind of stubborn: not that it had much time to prove otherwise. But given the design mentality behind most of the technology up here. Without Gilbert pointing it out, it wouldn’t have occurred to me. But doesn’t this mentality hint at a certain… how to call it… dedication? After all, this whole Tirnanog experiment must have been running for decades, centuries, or even millennia? Who knows? What human could stay dedicated to such a monumental task for such a long time? If the alien’s way of thinking was exotic enough to do something so monumental, maybe the ‘simple’ devices it preferred using were just an expression of this alien way of thinking?”
I shrugged. “Or maybe not. I was rambling. Though maybe we should mention this to Vanya? The little smart-ass often comes up with conclusions that are more outlandish than our alien overlords’ design preferences.”
Astra nodded. “No, you are right. With as little information as we have about the enemy, every little bit might help. If this brings us just half a step closer to understanding their reasoning, it is helpful. We should keep it in mind.”
We fell into an uncomfortable silence while the strange machinery went about its task all around us.
“Well!” Gilbert clapped his hands together. “Since you have now seen that there isn’t much you can do here, why don’t you go and visit the higher-ups? I believe they should already be planning new missions!”
I groaned. Hadn’t we just managed to get out of one?
Of course, Astra was all for it. “Is there something we haven’t heard about?”
“I don’t know whether you have heard already, but since my people managed to access the weather control system with Gaia’s help, we also got access to the integrated observation system. It’s not primarily meant for spying out the planet’s surface, but it works well enough!”
“And?” I gestured for him to continue. I wasn’t keen on another mission, but since he had already started spilling the beans, he should get it over with. I wasn’t the type of person who was into having to drag every little piece of information out of people.
Gilbert rubbed his hands together. “You know how population centres on Earth are visible from space when it is night? Tirnanog is the same. The kingdom is the hotspot when it comes to light emissions. The area where the clans live is naturally harder to identify, given that the population is more spread out, and some groups like Clan Aerie, who have gone completely underground. Nonetheless, it is noticeable when you know what to look for.”
“Why are you drawing this out!?” I exclaimed, followed by a satisfied grin from Gilbert. He obviously knew that he was annoying me and took his sweet pleasure from it. Surely, he was taking his revenge because it interrupted his work.
“Well, we found two more hotspots after checking out the entire planet. One is on an island chain south of our continent. The other is on the largest continent,” Gilbert revealed.
“Oh,” Astra replied, sounding downtrodden.
“What?” Gilbert asked.
“If there are only four ‘likely’ human population centres on Tirnanog, doesn’t that mean that all the other deportation centres have been dropping their people into death zones?” Astra explained her train of thought. “It’s no different than execution!”
“We can’t be certain,” I pointed out. “Though we should expect that at least one of the deportation facilities is doing just that. Given that one death-continent with the fungus.”
“Oh, yeah, that,” Gilbert nodded. “We have been using the weather control system with Gaia’s help to disinfect that one. The orbital mirror system is pretty good for raising temperatures locally.”
“Anyway,” Astra grabbed my arm, apparently not keen on hearing the details of creating a localised extinction event. “Why don’t we go to find my parents and ask them what’s happening with this new information. After all, the last I heard was that we put a stop to the exploration missions.”
