DLM, Bk 6, Ch 4

I had heard of looking for a needle in a haystack, but the task of finding the cause of resonance within the crystals was worse by an order of magnitude. Galatea and I had to find a connection, or at least a correlation, between something, possibly a flaw in the crystal-matrix of that set of power-crystals, a pattern within the current employed to guide their growth or maybe a minute imbalance in the composition of the growth-solution forming them, and then we had to form a model why that particular connection was causing resonance.

We were looking for a needle the size of an atom, while not certain that we were looking for a needle at all. And that was a headache, even the best algorithms could only do so much, especially if you did not know what you were actually looking for. That we needed to repeat prior processes, trying to avoid any changes, just in case an inadvertent change might render the whole process added to my annoyance and for two weeks, Galatea and I wholly focused on looking for that damned needle, the results confounding to say the least.

There were patterns, but nothing in the detected connections explained why different parts of the crystal had resonated the way they had, causing the desired, catastrophic failure in the end. It was a first step, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I was trying to form a model that explained what was going on, why different parts of the crystal-lattice that should not have a connection with each other had a connection and were resonating with each other in that particular manner. It was spooky and neither Galatea, nor I, had a real idea what was causing it.

After two weeks of looking at the data, trying to find that spark of inspiration that might send me down the right path, even Galatea was reporting boredom. Something quite intriguing, and we spent an interesting afternoon discussing the concept of boredom, how it affected biologicals and how it was different, yet connected, to routine. Altogether, discussing boredom was far more interesting than experiencing it, but at the end of the discussion, we decided that we needed a new, different project, or our path would end in madness.

And so, while somewhat interested in the mental escape of insanity, a new project was proposed, an exercise in the pursuit of vengeance. If the forces that had attacked and destroyed Accord Island had the Scourge, giving them a powerful weapon they could wield at their leisure, unconcerned with losses, possibly even the morale of their troops, we needed a similar weapon to counter that. The most obvious solution, maybe the only solution, was one that skittered through my base constantly, Galatea’s hands, her means to affect the world away from me. The arachnid robots that had built the base, dug the tunnels into the bedrock, moved the shattered rock away and were, ultimately, responsible for creating a base that would otherwise have taken decades to build, in just two years, they were the foundation of an answer.

But construction, even in rugged, underground conditions, was very much different from combat, especially when it came to control. That included control of the area of operations but also control of the individual robots. If a rock was crushed a minute late, or if some dirt remained on the floor for five minutes longer, there was no real problem. But if an operational task within combat was delayed by five minutes, if a robot was idle in the wrong place as new operational parameters were loaded, things would be problematic. Or rather, impossible.

No, we needed to take the basic, arachnid chassis and re-work things from the ground up, before setting up a limited production-run and, ultimately, forming a production-line that could create battle-ready robots from basic, obtainable resources. In addition, we needed to construct the robots in such a way that they were not dependent on constant monitoring, that was possible in a base we fully controlled but trying to have full, direct control and monitoring within hostile space was simply impossible.

In addition to that, Galatea had strongly asked not to be put into control of weapons, she did not want to become a weapon. If I wanted to have an army of robot-soldiers, I would be in control of them, though Galatea was willing to provide processing-resources. That meant I would have to develop a semi-autonomous system, partially controlled by myself, partially controlled by non-sentient artificial intelligence. At that thought, I had to chuckle to myself about the dangers of making a true artificial intelligence but, at the same time, giving her an underlying desire for peace and a certain inclination for passivity. She could take charge and act, but preferred to play second and support. Maybe that was for the best, as it meant that a robot-uprising was rather unlikely, at least one with Galatea at the helm.

Maybe the best thing about the design-process was the testing, specifically the weapons-testing. What sort of weapons did I want to install in semi-disposable combat-robots, what sort of weapons would I risk falling into enemy hands and how was I to prevent them finding out my secrets by using potentially destroyed and left behind robots. The likelihood that I would be able to prevent any and all losses was minute, not worthy of consideration, so I needed a robust self-destruct, making sure that nothing of value was left behind to be discovered. Annoyingly, the immediate response to the question of self-destruct were the energy-crystals I had poured over for weeks. They were, as so often, integral to my designs and if I had the ability to reliably detonate them, either once the unit was compromised or once a certain power-threshold was reached, to ensure enough energy remained to destroy the unit, they would certainly fit my requirements. But I was not about to start looking at that data again, not for some time.

Setting up different test-targets and constructing a wide variety of weapons to shoot at them was fun. There were some problems, mostly when I had decided to see how far I could push magnetically accelerated projectiles and the propensity of my test-robots to get flipped over but that merely meant I needed better bracing - Or that a weapon that could potentially shoot through multiple houses or cripple a main battle-tank was a slight overkill. One or the other. Or maybe both.

It also meant that, even as I was designing robotic soldiers to bring ruin to my enemies, I needed to consider how I wanted to proceed, and what I wanted to accomplish. I had procrastinated on that for the last two years, pushing the question back, to be solved after we had an established base and the means to pursue any objective beyond the immediate necessities. I would have to decide what I wanted to accomplish, both in the short and long-term, I would have to decide what my objectives were. Or I would not be able to accomplish anything.

If my objective was the destruction of the Colours-Group, I would have to find a lot more information about them, as I doubted they were foolish enough to have a convenient members-list somewhere, just waiting for me. If I wanted to see their plans falter, to watch all they did come to naught, I, again, needed more information.

I had my suspicions that Mrs. Greene, the mother of the unlamented Clark, was responsible for a lot of trouble. I knew that she had been waiting and ready to push her political aspirations and her agenda, right after Acord Island had been destroyed. For that, and for the foul deeds of her son, she was at least partially responsible, as people were made by the education they received, at least partially. That realization also made me wonder about myself, and about Galatea. How had the education and guidance I had received from my father, or the lack thereof, formed and influenced me? How had my character influenced the growth of Galatea and her development from a simple set of data-processing and modeling-algorithms into the person she had become?

If I managed to design and produce enough combat-robots, I would be able to act, which left the question, how to act, what to do. And what to accomplish. Killing people was easy, for a given value of easy. A single bullet, or maybe a hail of them, could accomplish that quickly and easily but if it came to killing a political party, let alone the underlying ideology and idea? That was far harder. But at the same time, an ideology was its people, an idea was only there, in the minds of people.

What would that mean for me, for my plans for the future? That was, yet another question I needed to answer for myself, or maybe with some moral guidance from Sophia.