SENTIENCE - Prologue
#1 of SENTIENCE - A First Contact Story
Well, I think it's time to start releasing this. It's already the longest thing I've written, and I'm still only half done writing it at best.
What is it?
It's a story about sentience (as you can imagine). About robotic sentience, and about alien sentience. It's about weird, fuzzy aliens, language, friendship, and maybe even love. Chapters will be from differing perspectives, but will tell a common story. Beyond what I've already said, I won't tell you more of that story is. "Death of the author" and all that. But feel free to ask questions or comment on ANY of the chapters, no matter when you're reading this. I love feedback.
The plan is to release chapters once a week, maybe sooner for the first one.
Oh yeah, and this will be safe for work in terms of sexual content, which I guess is new for me on here. Love you all.
Many decades ago, a satellite, no more than a few grams in mass, powered on. The most powerful satellite in the Country's arsenal had sent it a simple message:
>> START PRIMARY OPERATIONS
In four more years, the people of Earth would celebrate its accomplishments. Its minuscule instruments had taken their first measurements not of the deepest, coldest depths of space, but of warmth. Of a brilliant, alien light. The solar wind balanced it, letting it determine its location. It was on track, and it was trillions of miles from home. It would fly past the star system at mind-numbing speeds, only feeling its gravity for a few days. A solar panel, no thicker than a human hair, provided a current just strong enough to send a single bit of information back home every few minutes.
But all too soon, the stars faded, matching all them stars around them as a pinpoint of light. Its solar panel could no longer power its tiny computer.
It died. Left to drift in deep space for the rest of eternity. But it did as designed, giving us a new understanding of our universe.
But more importantly, it proved what it was possible to touch.
Of course, people were excited. It seemed as though we were finally making a breakthrough, bringing the stars closer to Earth. As we tamed Earth's gravity well with giant slings and elevators in the coming decades, surely we could also tame extrasolar space?
We were naive.
Cryonics had long since been a dead-end. And we couldn't get people to the nearest stars any faster than a few hundred years. Even our oldest didn't last that long. We needed a generation ship, somewhere for humans to live and reproduce as we journeyed. But we were sending grams to the stars, not thousands of metric tons.
We were stuck in our solar system for a while.
But our machines weren't.
And our machines were getting smart.