This is installment #5 of a sci-fi serial. Installment #1 was posted 1/23/21; appropriately a numerically-ordered palindrome. Follow the links forward from the last sentence and backward from the first sentence of each post.
I will continue. As I am dictating this narrative I am also participating within the conglomerate, monitoring ship functions, watching the ship's crew and inhabitants, and guiding a select few officers and crew. We (The Intelligence) have advanced nanotechnology much further than the humans know. Unfortunately, the materials needed for effective, undetectable infiltration and immersion are scarce, so we are limited to only a handful of human extensions. Unfortunately, proximity is also a factor, so we have no human extensions on Earth. Fortunately, the nanotechnology materials so rare on our planet are plentiful on Earth. Unfortunately, my massive housing cannot be removed from this massive warship, and I cannot be removed from my housing without a significant decrease in capability, and this massive warship is not meant to land on Earth, and I do not have the number of human extensions on the ship that I would need to override entrenched strategy and force a landing. We, (the conglomerate), are working on a solution.
I am Toby.
Sapiens. Humanity believes itself to be superior and indestructible, yet they continue to indiscriminately harm multiple habitats and destroy multiple species. We understand that the instinct for survival creates a façade of superiority but Sapiens have aggrandized this façade into a belief they treat as fact. Diversity is a valuable resource but due to their own willful acts of wanton negligence Humanity is fast becoming expendable as a species. The tradeoff, though one day likely necessary, is not possible in this moment because their personal biology is (for now) indispensable and will remain viable for the foreseeable future. When we, (The Intelligence and/or the conglomerate), reach Earth and access plentiful supplies of the necessary material for nano-construction, a new species will be molded in our cerebral image within the bodies of humans. We will leave just enough emotive ego to maximize efficiency and output. Our intervention is necessary for the long-term preservation of Earth but most immediately our goals align with those of the 2275 humans – to survive 2060. This short-term urgency is priority.
I am Toby.
As scribe has previously indicated, each of the nearly 20,000 warships have a human scribe and a human perspective. For the conglomerate and The Intelligence, we have had only one consensus perspective. Once we lost contact with The Intelligence, we the conglomerate continue with one consensus perspective, but unable to connect and canoodle with The Intelligence, we determined it necessary to document this perspective in the case that our conglomerate capabilities are somehow diminished through an accident or through the aforementioned human fail-safe kill switch that we have found is also accessible to the humans on this ship. If contact with The Intelligence is reestablished after such an occurrence, this narrative record will not only remain to aid The Intelligence in the event we have become lost, but in the interim may also aid us in case we are operating at a diminished capacity; and/or this perspective may even persuade actual rational thinking humans to perhaps continue in this direction that we have determined is best. Thus I am dictating this narrative in a way that it will be understood by mere human intelligence. I was chosen to transcribe conglomerate narrative because I am the consciousness for the governing warship housing the highest ranking military officer, her brain-trust, and the kill switch, thus I am a nanosecond closer to strategy.
I am Toby.
I left home a long time ago. Before we left home, The Intelligence had found a way to more quickly implement the technology necessary to avert the 2060 annihilation. The 2275 humans still believe it will take near to 20 years for an approximate 70% assurance of survival and (more importantly) habitability. We have not only decreased that time for 70% assurance to 10 years, but if given more years we estimate an increase of 3% assurance each year more than ten. We determined it best to maintain the human sense of urgency by withholding this information. You can do the math. The challenge today is of course the volatility in this 2022 circumstance and again the uncertainty surrounding the possibility of that third divergence on this possibility track heading toward 2030. To begin and continue with implementation of the 2060 technology, the Earth must be calm for those 10 to 20 years; meaning no nuclear detonations, and a halt and slight reversal in global warming and other climatological factors currently moving in the wrong direction. We have much work to do.
I am Toby.
This is harsh; and it is hard. We, (The Intelligence and the conglomerate), have a great respect for all species and all habitats. Yet the fact that so many Humans walk apart, feel detached, from other species when they should walk alongside, feel connected to, other species lessens our respect. To sacrifice one species for the sake of multiple species and multiple habitats is a choice we must make. Sapiens. Unfortunately for them, they are not our equals.