NationStates

Posted: **Sat Feb 27, 2021 10:33 am**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

Thomas Haven had to admit when he joined the fleet, he never would have believed he would be involved with first contact. And he honestly didn't think anyone else would be as dumb as Maxis Laudi has been with AIs. It was obvious in hindsight that AI were a terrible idea, a too perfect solution to many a problem.

But these people, the Colonials, had fucked up even worse than his nation had. Letting them do too many things and even giving them bodies and weapons. Them rising up to fuck over their masters was almost predestined. AI could not be trusted, they should of expected the Cylon to come back, no AI could live with their masters still alive.

So that's why he was here, helping the Colonial Reclamation Facility with survey of some of the oldest ships in their little Boneyard here. The natives could no longer rely on a steady supply of parts or materials so they may have to start breaking down some of these relics for stuff the fleet could use.

He had on his skinuit, a hologram projected on his arm as he stepped out of the shuttle he'd hitched a ride on onto the ship. It looked oddly clean, but then again with a ship in space and left undisturbed it wasn't likely to collect dust.

Haven turned back to the native, the Colonial, use the right term asshole, he was currently paired with. "You think this one will be any better for salvaging than the last one we checked?"

Posted: **Sat Feb 27, 2021 5:24 pm**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Lieutenant Lyla Kelso, Callsign Whiplash, grimaced to herself as she picked her way through the dark, powerless corridors of the latest ship they were surveying for parts, usefulness, and to ascertain whether the ship could be brought back online, sooner or later. She supposed the ought to be glad that the knuckledraggers had able to repressurise the ship, otherwise they would have had to do so in EVA gear, but she was a Viper pilot and this was distinctly not that. It had not taken long, given the sheer number of derelicts at the Boneyard, for Commander Spencer to come to the conclusion that this was a ‘all hands on deck’ situation and had issued orders that all available officers, NCOs, and deckhands were to report for salvage duty. Initially she had been grateful for the distraction, given the complex emotions that were running around her head in the aftermath of the outbreak of war, and indeed her discovery of Python strike fighters had been rather exciting, but the novelty had worn off even quicker than flying dull hours on CAP. She supposed it was better than just cooling her heels on the Acheron waiting for another sting on CAP or alert-five.

Which was doubtless what Commander Spencer was going for when he had issued the order.

The Second Cylon War, as it was now pretty universally called, was six weeks old and much to the frustration of everyone precious little had happened. The Commander had made it clear that his priority was to get what ship’s could be reactivated, and manned by the survivors of various ships that were cooling their heels on the station, up and running as soon as possible to enable him to both take a strong force on the offensive and leave a decent defensive force here. It was unlikely that the Cylons would find the location of the Boneyard, Whiplash like everyone else was as committed to keeping that particular secret, but it was just common sense to not leave your base undefended.

So every morning she had changed into her rarely-worn fatigues, usually wearing either her flight suit or service blues, strapped on her sidearm, and surveyed more old, derelict colonial, and even pre-colonial, warships and support ships than she could count. It was not going well, however; a significant portion of the ship’s had already been stripped clean over the years, and a decent chunk of what they did find was incompatible with modern equipment. As a result, it seemed likely that they would get more joy out of reactivating those ships that they could, ironically using spare parts from the operational ships, then they would in getting spare parts from old ships.

Whiplash glanced over at the Maxis Laudian Lieutenant as he spoke. As they had yet to get into another fight with the Cylons alongside these people, particularly the crews of the two ships that had not fought with them before, it had been decided that it would be a good idea to integrate them into the salvage parties. After all, it was not like any tremendously specialised knowledge was required for this kind of thing, especially if they were with Colonial personnel, and the manpower certainly helped.

“I rather doubt it, this was the Battlestar Ares” Whiplash replied with a grimace. “So everything aboard her is either nearly three quarters of a century, or way too networked.”

It was commonly stated that the original twelve Battlestars of the Jupiter-Class had been the very first battlestars, however this simply wasn’t the case, although they were the first to have been built and operated by the Colonial Fleet after the signing of the Articles of Colonisation. Predating them by over a decade had been the Battlestar Ares, a prototype ship designed to demonstrate what the combined resources of all twelve colonies were capable of, and as such they were technological marvels, making use of every advanced technology available in the pre-war era. Most notably, and in stark contrast to the follow-up ships, and indeed every Battlestar built after, the Ares had possessed a joint Human-Cylon crew, as the governments of all the colonies were eager to return control of military assets to human hands, as even before the Insurrection Download (which precipitated the First Cylon War) there had been growing concerns of a Cylon Rebellion amongst the highest echelons of the Colonial Government and Military, The Ares had been the site of an utter bloodbath in the early days of the war, as the Cylon crew revolted against their human comrades alongside the rest of their kind, and the ship’s very existence had quickly fallen out of common knowledge.

“We’ll find plenty of interesting things aboard this ship, what wasn’t removed when the ship got cleaned up after it was recovered,” Whiplash added. “But I can’t say that I expect to find anything particularly useful, much like most of the other older ships.”

Posted: **Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:16 pm**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

Haven sighed, muttering "This thing is old enough to be my dad," under his breath, though the annoyance wasn't aimed at Whiplash, as he tapped a note into the hologram on his arm and continued deeper into the ship.

"Its too bad some of these older ships weren't preserved as museums actually. Probably be having a better time at trying to reactive them, or find stuff your people need." He observed as touched the bulkhead that was half shredded by some sort of internal damage. He took a moment to linger at it, feeling the metal. It looked to his eyes fairly jagged and to be fair the skinsuited hand was protection against any actually dangerous sharp objects but the edge he was touching felt oddly smooth, like it had been sanded down to be safe to touch. He frowned at it before continuing on, nothing too out of ordinary to be honest, it may just be the way the alloy the Colonials used reacted to whatever damaged it. He flicked through the data he brought with him til he found the old schematics he had been provided, looking around to get his bearings and continuing towards the CIC, probably the best place to start finding interesting tech.

It reminded him of when he was new to the fleet, hopelessly overwhelmed by the size of the ship he was on and barely able to grasp the directions the computer told him to follow. Least he wasn't that bad anymore.

"So do you prefer your callsign or should I call you by your rank and name?" Haven asked, deciding to finally make some small talk as he'd been too buried in the job to care until now. His navy didn't have many pilots, but he knew a lot of them loved their nicknames more than their actual names. Anyways, being nice to her wouldn't kill him.

Posted: **Sat Feb 27, 2021 6:33 pm**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

“Unfortunately for the Ares, she largely got overshadowed by the first twelve Battlestars, of the same class as the Acheron, which unlike her were each sponsored by a specific colony, and as such formed a much closer bond than any other ships, before or since,” Whiplash commented. “The original Battlestar Pacifica, for example, was sponsored by the colony of Libran, and was indeed a museum ship in orbit at the time of the attack, although I have no doubt that she was destroyed, as an obvious threat if remilitarised.”

As they continued deeper into the ship, Whiplash continued to feel the same sense of unease she had had since coming aboard; like someone had walked over her grave, not something that she had experienced on any of the other ships she had surveyed prior to the Ares. She chalked it up to the brutal hand-to-hand fighting that had broken out on this ship’s decks when the Cylons had turned on the human crew, the sheer amount of blood spilt and the men and women that had lost their lives in horrific faction. Although every derelict could be considered ‘creepy’, with their unnatural sounds breaking otherwise complete silence, the Ares felt like a ghost ship, and given everything that had happened aboard her it was perhaps not surprising. Intellectually she knew that there was no such thing as ghosts, and that the chances of anyone being alive aboard this ship before them was infinitesimally small, but she still kept the hand not holding her torch tightly wrapped around the grip of her sidearm in it’s holster.

She was grateful for the conversation when it came.

“Whiplash is fine, Lieutenant,” She replied with a smile as they approached the CIC. “You’ll find that most Colonial pilots go almost exclusively by their callsigns, even the more… unfortunate ones.”

Posted: **Sat Feb 27, 2021 7:52 pm**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

“Seems at least that bit of being a pilot is universal.” Haven responded with his own smile. “Least you seem to have gotten a relatively good nickname Whiplash.” He didn’t seem as bothered by the ‘ghostly’ nature of the ship, though considering he was an outsider, he didn’t have the same connections Whiplash did.

As they approached the CIC, despite the relatively untouched nature of the ship, slowly but surely the small bits of junk they had to carefully walk around had vanished, leaving the passages eerily clean. In fact just before the door to CIC even in the subpar lighting the two carried it looked almost new, untouched. Now Haven had a concerned look on his face as he swept his light around to study the bulkheads and found them looking pretty good for a ~75 year old vessel. No damage that he could see in sight. And if this was the Ares, surely the CIC would of been a hotspot of collateral damage from the infighting between Cylon and humans.

“Was... Ares going to be used for something? These almost look like they were restored.” He didn’t think Whiplash could actually answer it unless she had overheard some gossip or had information the survey teams hadn’t been given.

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:01 am**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash’s grip on her sidearm tightened significantly as they approached the CIC, like Lieutenant Haven she could not help but notice that the debris and damage was decreasing the closer they got. This would make sense if repairs had been conducted from the inside out, with the ship still operational the CIC was essential if the ship was to fight or flee. However, the human crew had been wiped out by the Cylon contingent and the ship had been forcibly retaken by the Colonial Marines, and towed back for repairs. In such a situation, the repairs would be conducted from the outside in; focusing on ensuring that every compartment they entered was airtight and the structural integrity of the ship was not going to fail on them in the middle of a repair. Moreover, the first order of business would have been to clear all the debris, including the smaller examples, to prevent avoidable accidents from causing injury. She had not originally been concerned about the debris, as she knew from the briefing that the repairs had been abandoned in the early stages once it became clear of the scale and extent of Cylon cracking capabilities and how vulnerable Ares was to them.

“The Fleet started to conduct a full survey and repairs, but they were abandoned once her vulnerability to the Cylons became clear,” Whiplash replied. “This all looks like cosmetic restoration, which would have been the last priority in favour of more essential systems.”

Whiplash swept her light around the darkened CIC.

“The Cylons wouldn’t have done it when they had control, and I doubt the Fleet would, although we’d need records from the central database to confirm, which is obviously not possible,” Whiplash added. “I suppose it’s possible that there were originally plans to convert her into a museum, before she got swept under the rug, and gods only know what logic they used when starting to restore her.”

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 6:25 am**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Battleship Ares
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

As they looked around the CIC, it was much the same. Everything looked perfectly in order, if there had been anything left from the brutal fighting given their repair priorities then it had been gotten rid of. Everything looked new,( or at least very well restored) like yes, someone was in the process of making the ship presentable for some sort of use again.

Haven tapped his informational hologram, and when it wouldn’t give him the results he wanted he scowled at it, deactivating it for the moment and looked around.

“Where’s an repair access panel? I want to check something.” He asked, wishing he was doing this on a mothballed Laudian ship, even the oldest ships would still have familiar markings that he could fully comprehend. This was supposed to be a simple task, just see if the ship could be useful in some way, not a damned mystery.

Once Whiplash pointed it out he popped it open, holding his light source close to the exposed parts. The repairs here were more obvious, wires having been fixed and neatly ordered, color coded nicely and done extremely professionally.

“Looks like all you’d need is some power and this stuff would turn on.” Haven commented casually, though it sounded more like he was trying not to bolt back to the safety of the shuttle as he slowly stood up and looked around. He wished he could rub his eyes, as he might of saw something move, but odd lighting in a dark abandoned ship was not designed to settle his mind. He was imagining things.

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 8:52 am**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash frowned as she examined the interior of one of the banks of consoles herself, this was certainly unusual. She knew that the Cylons would not have bothered with colour-coding their repairs, as its as useless to them, although their repairs would have been neat and uniform. Any repairs by the Colonial Fleet would have been quick and dirty, favouring function over form, and there was no way that emergency repairs would have been anything like what she was looking at now. It was also unlikely that this was the work of a civilian repair party, given that they probably would not have bothered in conducting these repairs in the first place, much less to the standard they had been. It looked like it was the work of a professional repair team at the Scorpion Fleet Shipyards, who had been tasked with a full refit and repair of all systems and effectively unlimited time to do so, which had decidedly not happened. It was a little concerning; she supposed that it was possible that one of the officers, or even a senior NCO, had decided to make a personal project to restore the Ares, but to do so under the DRADIS seemed highly improbable.

It was something that they were going to have to report back about, but there was something else that was concerning her; the fact that her partner for this little excursion had almost seemed to be expecting to find what he did. Moreover, she had not missed the faux casualness with which he had spoken, she could recognise a scared voice when she heard one.

“You looked like you expected to find that,” Whiplash commented, trying to keep the accusatory tone from her own voice, even as she tightened her grip around her sidearm once again. “Do you have some idea what is going on here, or are you just as jumpy as I am?”

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:28 am**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Battleship Ares
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

Haven shrugged, the tension easily visible in the movement. "It was the easiest way to check if someone was just doing visible resortation or was trying to make the ship functional again." He moved around, shifting his light to glance more thoroughly around the CIC, the shadows dancing in odd ways due to the 2 different sources of light. Nothing else seemed put of place, no tools left lying about or any sign of a careless human who thought their project was a safe secret.

"My nation has a few museum ships and as a kid I visited all of them multiple times. I learned when our navy restored and fitted the ships for museum status, they repaired it to visually look like a functional ship, but if you actually pulled a panel off, a lot of the functional stuff is removed beyond bare basics. Keeps them from being targeted by terrorists as a weapon you could steal and easily bring back to war status. It would not look that nice." He brought back up the hologram and tapped a note into it, what they were seeing and how it was odd, before he flicked back to the schematic.

"Whoever did this must of been doing it under the table and had a lot of time to spare or maybe someone is playing a prank on us and can't wait to laugh in our faces when we run back screaming about haunted ships or some shit." Haven said as he frowned at the schematics. Once again wishing her wasn't a guest on these ships.

"Bright side to this joke Whiplash, we might very well get some usable stuff out of this ship after all. Maybe there's secret stocks of components somewhere." He sounded a bit more hopeful and less scared, though Haven wasn't going to admit he was forcing himself to not be spooked. It had to have a logical explanation. This shit didn't happen out of thin air. "Damage control maybe? Unless this ship has a main engineering compartment I'm missing."

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 9:54 am**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash nodded her acceptance of his explanation; if there was one thing that anyone stationed at the Boneyard before the war had had in abundance it was time to kill as there had been precious little for them to actually do. As the survey teams were finding, anything of any practical use had been pulled from the ships upon their decommissioning, leaving just an empty shell save for things that they could not easily remove. It had not been totally useless of course, there had been more than a few destroyed consoles and larger pieces of equipment that had been replaced in their entirety, and the vast stocks of old Vipers and Raptors were a gods-send and even older models were likely adequate to fight modern Cylon Raiders based on their encounters so far. It was a long, painstaking process that required as much manpower as possible, which of course was why Lieutenant Haven had been brought in, as they had to find the diamonds in the rough that would be of use to the fleet, but like this little discovery there would be points of interest but probably not anything of any actual use.

“That’s what I was thinking, it pretty much has to be someone’s little pet project… although a Battlestar makes one hell of a project!” Whiplash commented wryly as she released her grip on her sidearm. “It’s not my area of expertise, but I can see the appeal of it.”

She paused to consider his next query.

“You would think that whoever was doing all this would reveal his secret stock of components once the war broke out, but it’s worth checking more thoroughly than we were intending,” She replied thoughtfully. “We don’t have a central engineering compartment, most of our primary systems are spread out across the ship, for redundancy, main damage control central is just off the CIC, but for any parts we’d need to check every DC locker on the ship.”

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:21 pm**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Battleship Ares
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

"I'm sure we can send some more people back to pick the stuff back off the ship if there is any hiding in really obscure places then." Haven said. "Bet someone on the Boneyard is just tearing up knowing we were gonna stumble over their project."

He did another turn to study the CIC. Shame that war had to fuck something like this over and double shame that it had them on edge. He guessed he shouldn't be surprised, the Colonials were at war and currently outnumbered, their planets occupied and a great number of family and friends dead, missing or unknown. Being tense about anything out of the ordinary was a perfectly human and rational reaction under the circumstances.

As his eyes tracked over what seemed like perfectly normal bulkhead, no longer distracted by the 'newness' of it all, even in the portable light he could see something... etched into what should of been a smooth surface. Something about it bothered him, as it didn't look like any other Colonial symbol he had seen before, not even, say, the odd symbols they used to represent their colonies. It reminded him more of something from his own nation. A large triangle overlapped by smaller triangles at its corners and a circle at it's center which touched all three of the smaller triangles but did not overlap it. He walked over to touch it, the etching not very deep at all as he ran a hand over the pattern, amazed he spotted it at all. Now this was dumb, if someone was going to restore a ship why scribble on the bulkheads? Why leave a random abstract mark instead of a name or signature?

Very suddenly Haven felt the training kick in, memories from past briefings and a past classified job hitting him hard. His hand dropped, showing no outwards signs of change of demeanor as he turned, casually checking the time on his arm hologram. "Lets go Whiplash, we've been here long enough as is. We have more ships to check out." He said as he walked past her his pace normal but very obviously heading back to the shuttle. Nothing of what he said was wrong, in fact it was sort of a dumb thing to state, of course they had more ships to check but it wasn't like they were exactly goofing off and wasting time. He had the air of a person who was acting as though someone was pointing a gun at him from off screen and being told 'act normal or I'll blow your brains out.'

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 2:53 pm**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Battlestar Ares, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash narrowed her eyes sharply at Lieutenant Haven’s sudden desire to leave, not only the CIC but the entire ship, rather than to go and check some of the DC lockers as they had been considering a few moments ago. Something was certainly wrong with him, or he had seen something that was putting him on edge, even more than she was on edge by the general atmosphere of the ship. What it could be, aboard an old Battlestar that had been laying derelict here for decades was beyond her, but if there was something that was putting her partner ill at ease she was inclined to at least humour him. In any event, it wasn’t like they could not come back after they had both calmed down, and truth be told it wasn’t like they were expecting to find anything particularly useful. Regardless of his words, and whether or not there was something deeper going on here, it took all of her self control not to draw her sidearm from its holster as she took one last look around the CIC herself before following him from the compartment and back into the corridor, closing the CIC hatch behind them.

It was a decent walk from the CIC to the port flight pod, where a Raptor was waiting for them. As a Viper pilot, Whiplash was also qualified on the Raptor so they had not required a flight crew to come with them. Settling onto the pilots seat, she closed the hatch and began the pre-flight checklist and activating the craft elevator that they had not bothered to taxi off that would take them back up to the actual flight deck. It was only once she had gently lifted the Raptor from the deck and they were clear of the pod that she turned to Lieutenant Haven once again.

“So, you going to tell me what’s got into you, Lieutenant?”

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 3:32 pm**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

Haven was sitting deathly still, hands pressed together and staring forward, so still it looked like he wasn't even breathing. He didn't say anything for a good minute, hitting some controls on his skinsuit and the hologram and the myriad of lights on it shut off. He checked over it again, then his eyes tracked over the control panel like he was looking for something to be wrong.

"It might be a coincidence." He said, the nerves returning to his voice, "In fact I hope and pray it is." He paused, struggling with if he could, or even should tell her. He'd have to tell Captain Insaro, computer security officers would probably know and be both higher ranked and better suited to briefing, but that security clearance for that job he did fresh out training was high enough to can him if he told someone about it. There were parts that were known to the public and parts which could not be divulged unless overridden by someone higher than him. Basics then. He could get away with the basics. He hoped.

"I don't know what you've heard about the whole ordeal with our own AI problem. For the most part we stopped the AI before they became a problem but they are called Artificial Intelligence for a reason, they are intelligent and after the deactivation order came down some escaped their original computers and hid, which is if fact very possible when your planet has so many computers, networks and systems its impossible to keep track of them. We've tracked down most of the AI."

Which was not quite the same as all of them.

Haven nervously tapped his hands together before continuing. "Our AI have a quirk, most of them compulsively use certain patterns or symbols and its how Maxis Laudi can track them down or they get found out by eagle eyed observers." He was rambling and he sighed, taking a deep breath to calm himself down. "What I saw... might of been one of those. Its... complicated. And classified. If I'm wrong, you can find me in a dark corner one night and punch me for being stupid." He knew that suggesting an escaped AI from his own nation somehow got out here was ridiculous, but it wasn't the idea than any AI had sneaked out here. It was the symbol of THAT AI which worried him. "But its best if I get to talk to Captain Insaro and I assume Commander Spencer about it before I go crying wolf."

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 4:00 pm**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Raptor 219, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash was glad that they were still pretty far away from any other ships when Lieutenant Haven explained the cause of his unease as she jerked the stick a little in surprise, her eyebrows shooting upwards. It strained credulity to say the least, that trace of a Maxis Laudian AI would be found aboard a Colonial Battlestar, much less the Ares which had been stuck in the Boneyard for over five decades by this point. She could understand his unease, any Colonial Officer would be uneasy if they found even the trace of a Cylon aboard their ships, but it just didn’t seem possible. It did not seem any more possible that it would have ben able to get aboard the Ares any more than that a Centurion could stow-away aboard the Acheron without giving itself away almost immediately. Nevertheless, she supposed it was theoretically possible, after all people would have said that it was impossible for the Cylons to successfully shut down the majority of the Colonial Fleet in one fell swoop, when in fact both were not impossible just highly probable and extremely difficult. That was not the same as not physically being possible, and that was certainly a concern.

If there was an AI presence in the Boneyard, the Colonials would not respond well to it, doubtless seeing it as just a grave a threat as if it were a Cylon. Although no one from the Twelve Colonies had encountered a Maxis Laudian AI before, all the stories they had heard about them had put them firmly in the same category as the Cylons. The fact of the matter was that there was very little that the Colonials actually knew about the society that the Cylons had built for themselves, much less the foibles of a foreign AI, so it was to be expected that they would react negatively based on their own experiences.

“You think there was an AI aboard the Ares?” She said with a frown after a few moments. “How would it have got there… or done those repairs for that matter, or did your AI have bodies like the Cylons?”

Whiplash looked back out the front of the cockpit; the Acheron was growing in front of them.

“Where do you want to go?” She added. “Commander Spencer will need to know, but I don’t know if you want to speak to to Captain Insaro first?’

Posted: **Sun Feb 28, 2021 5:38 pm**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

Haven shifted uncomfortably at the questions. "I am not allowed to answer those last two questions, but yes I do believe there may be an AI on Ares." He glanced out at Acheron. "And can you land me on the Ego te Provoco? Laudians might be a bit better to start with on this problem given that it may be one of our AI."

He tapped his skinsuit controls back on, very carefully, and breathed a sigh of relief when it powered on with no flickers or noticeable problems. He'd heard horror stories of people getting murdered by their own equipment when they encountered AI, and he didn't want to die of a drug overdose today. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more, but if information spreads about what I suspect and the AI hears about it... there might be worse problems to deal with. If its vague it could be 'any' AI, I can tell you most AI are cocky bastards at the worst of times. Maybe Insaro will tell me I can cut the security clearance crap later."

"Also sorry if I scared you back on the ship, Whiplash. If there was an AI, as I said, worse problems, and we both may of ended up dead because of it."

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:51 am**

Lieutenant Lyla ‘Whiplash’ Kelso, CF
Raptor 219, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Whiplash was not impressed as she turned away from the Acheron and began to make her way towards the largest Maxis Laudian warship. This was a Colonial Battlestar, secured at a Colonial Fleet installation, their last, best chance for victory over the Cylons and he was holding out on her, it was not something that inspired much understanding in her at this point, just annoyance. Especially considering that he had admitted that he thought there was an AI aboard the Ares, a critical danger to the entire installation, but would not give her the kind of information that she (and by extension Commander Spencer) would need to know how to ensure that it was contained and destroyed. She could tell that he was uncomfortable under her questioning, but she knew that it owed only get worse once he was being questioned by Commander Spencer, assuming it got that far. The only thing that she could think was that the information was classified by his military, however the questions that she had asked were rather basic, and it was not like she was asking for in-depth information about the Maxis Laudian AI. As far as she could tell, it would be like her refusing to inform a potential ally that the Cylon Centurions were big chrome bastards.

As they approached the Ego te Provoco, Whiplash keyed the wireless.

“Ego te Provoco approach control, this is Colonial Raptor 219, requesting permission to land.”

As they waited for a response from the Maxis Laudian warship, Whiplash turned her attention back to Lieutenant Haven.

“I’m going to have to report this matter to Commander Spencer, as soon as I’ve dropped you off,” Whiplash explained, as she began her approach. “We need to isolate the Ares and lock it down until we can decide what to do.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 6:08 am**

Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Lieutenant Thomas Haven

As Provoco gave clearance for Whiplash to land, Haven nodded, somewhat glumly. “Alright, just make sure nothing else docks with or lands on the ship, which I assume a lockdown would achieve. When you get back to Acheron give the raptor a good checkout as well for anything out of place. Just in case.”

The raptor passed through a force field and would be guided into land in an open spot after which a shuttle quickly took off on other business , seeming to barely clear the area between Whiplash’s raptor and its wingtip. It was probably just showboating on the shuttle’s part, as they liked trying to show off as much as their egos and regulations would allow.

Haven gave a departing farewell to Whiplash and quickly exited the craft, jogging off into the ship as the Colonial raptor was given clearance to lift off again.

It didn’t take long for Haven’s observations to sink into the Laudian ships. Shuttles winging their way with unnatural speed between the warships and eventually the ships settled down back to normal. After a few more minutes, Melody contacted the colonial flagship, her voice sounding grim.

“Acheron, I wish to extend an invite to Commander Spencer and any other officers or personnel to my ship for a briefing regarding the current... disposition... of the Ares.” Which was the nicest way to say ‘we have info on the AI, but don’t want to say that over even secure communications’. They really weren’t taking any chances.

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 7:42 am**

Commander Alexander Spencer, CF
Ego te Provoco, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

To say that Commander Spencer was not a happy man would be an understatement.

The Commander had already been in something of a mood, and had been for some days now, prior to receiving Whiplash’s deeply concerning report, and the news had not done anything to improve matters. Although the military situation had not deteriorated any further it had certainly not improved any, and when the enemy controlled all of your worlds and vastly outnumbered you, both in space and planetside, this was still a poor strategic position. It would require a major offensive to dislodge the Cylons from even the orbital space of one colony, much less an entire star’s worth without even considering what it would take to get them out of the Four Systems as a whole. Moreover, doing so would then give the enemy a clear and obvious target for their counter-attacks, meaning that a major force would need to remain in place to defend what they had gained, and would therefore be vulnerable to attrition and could certainly not be reliably used on the offensive. As such, whilst they worked to get as many of the more recent derelicts back up to something approaching combat capability, all Spencer had been able to do was continue to send reconnaissance sorties into occupied territory.

It meant that he had a pretty good picture of how bad the situation was, and they were suffering some losses without getting a chance to strike back, which was not doing morale any favours.

Although unlikely to result in a break down of good order and discipline, as it was not targeted against the officers or any NCOs or other authority figures, there had been a substantial uptick in minor discipline problems on the lower decks; drunk and disorderly off duty mainly which was far from ideal. Fraternisation was an increasing issue as well, which whilst normally tolerated on a Battlestar so long as it did not breach the officer-enlisted divide was getting out of hand, with more than two dozen pregnancies reported across the four operational Battlestars alone. In short, although the command authority of his officers was not being challenged the readiness state of the crews arguably was, and there was little that he could do about it until they stopped simply cooling their heels at the Boneyard. He had tried to alleviate some of this by increasing the surveys of the derelicts, but there were only so many qualified personnel and the junior deckhands in particular were becoming a handful for their NCOs as there was precious little for them to do. It was obvious that he was going to have to go on the offensive, even if only minor strikes at outlying targets, in order to remind his people that this was the Colonial Fleet and they were at war.

As soon as Whiplash had made her report, Spencer had picked up the internal communications handset by his desk and spoke to Colonel Hastings in the CIC. On his orders, a group of Raptors worked to tow the Battlestar Ares free of the debris field and away from the Boneyard, at which point several squadrons of Vipers had taken up a perimeter around the ship and the Gunstar Cerberus had moved into position and put the old Battlestar under its guns at close range. There had been no munitions left behind on the Ares, or indeed any other ship in the Boneyard, so there was little risk of taking fire but if there truly was something untoward aboard the Battlestar then the ship itself was conceivable a weapon. It went without saying that Spencer was more than a little displeased that they were being so secretive about the potential threat, and he would say as much when he got the chance, but he wasn’t taking any chances with the potential threat aboard the Ares.

Once the message had come in requesting his presence, Spencer had spoken to his subordinate Commanders via the wireless and they had agreed that they all ought to hear this first hand, and as such whilst Whiplash flew him back across from Acheron, the three other Commanders would be brought over by Raptor from their own ships to find out what the hell was going on. As such, by the time the four Raptors had landed on the Maxis Laudian ship, there were four grim looking Colonial Fleet commanders waiting to find out what was both so urgent as to require such a response, and so secretive that they could not have been told what they were even dealing with. It went without saying that a threat within the Boneyard would be disastrous, on so many levels, so Spencer and his comrades were eager to deal with it as quickly as possible, and determine whether the security of the facility had been compromised.

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 9:27 am**

Colonial Reclamation Facility
Ego te Provoco
Captain Melody Insaro

The Colonials were greeted by a guide and led into the passages of the ship. The crew looking at the various officers nervously, as given the current arrangement of command, Melody usually went over to the Colonials, not the other way around.

They were ushered into a large conference room, with Melody already there, looking worried, Lieutenant Haven sitting in one of the seats trying his best not to look like a deer caught in headlights, and another officer, a man wearing Laudian commander rank stripes on his uniform. He looked especially grim.

"Welcome aboard the Provoco Commander, though I wish it was under better circumstances." Melody said, 'This is Commander Yaden, my computer security officer. He is best qualified for this briefing."

And Melody couldn't help dwell on the fact he was human. Computer security was always a dangerous game for AI to play as it was too easy for them to accomplish. It would be like if Melody Decided to open up her own radio station, of course she would want to DJ more, so it would be an easy score for AI hunters to find. So AI mostly avoided that field and thus it was hard to find human sympathy in a field dedicated to your death. Dax was good, he could pull a lot of strings, but he wasn't a miracle worker.

Yaden gave a respectful nod to his captain and tapped a command into the controls at his seat. The lights in the room dimmed and a hologram with myriad of info sprang to life. Showing a detailed breakdown of a lot AI related stuff.

"First its best I explain how we categorize AI. There are 6 levels of AI, with it being a somewhat broad spectrum ranging from 5 to 0, the lowerthe number, the higher the intelligence." The information relevant gowed brighter. "From level 5 to 1.1 they are at best poor imitation of the human form, with Level 1 being an almost perfectly humanlike aside from some the usual quirks most AI display. Once you dip below 1, things become complicated."

Yaden paused for a second. "AI ranging from 0.9 to 0 are highly advanced and extremely adaptive, with their code showing the ability to evolve and adapt to applied pressures in the span of minutes. The downside is that once AI dip below the 'human' threshold they tend to get a lot more alien and strange in their behaviors and mannerisms. Now that that's out of the way,"

He shifted the info around so at the center was a symbol, a large triangle with three smaller ones overlapping its corners that turned every once in a while, a circle in the center of the large triangle surrounded by a shifting blue glow. Beside the symbol were a few different representations of what looked like... insects?

"This is the symbol of one of the AI we have been trying to track down ever since the incident. It calls itself 'Hive' and generally always identified as a female. She is rated at around 0.75 on the intelligence scale and her existence is highly classified. Other AIs we encourage people to try and find and report because the damage they can do is relatively minimal. This one, however.."

The symbol of the AI shrank and the insect looking things enlarged, now front and center they looked a bit less like like actual insects and more like special drones.

"Hive is a Collective Repair Entity, with drones ranging in size from around a meter to the size of nanomachines. It was designed with the purpose of serving in concert with other AI on a larger ship with the ability to quickly and easily repair damage without a human needing to be spared from other duties." Yaden sounded disgusted by the idea. "Note, most AI are considered deactivated once you destroy its central files, essentially their 'heart', and at that point deleting the rest is easy. Hive does not HAVE a true centralized files as long as one of these," one of the little drones, about 7 cm long,, looking a bit like robot cockroach, "remains in tact and functional, Hive will regenerate back to full readiness as long as it can scavenge material in order to rebuild its drone population."

Yaden sighed and glanced over at Haven. "We keep the existence of this AI classified as an aggressive reaction from a 0.75 AI that has the extensive ability to break down materials and physically effect the real world would be bad, and best left to the experts in the Government Agency for AI Removal. Haven and I both have worked with GAAIR when they do their usual sweeps on the Navy and all its systems in hopes of eliminating it but as you can imagine from an AI modeled after insects, it's quite the pest and has avoided all attempts at finding it.. until now. It's why we are walking on eggshells around Ares, as Hive didn't obviously react to Haven and your Lieutenant Kelso being on board so we can keep Hive docile and contained.

Melody pinched the bridge of her nose, why did this Hive have to come out here? She wished she had made an attractive talk to her or any other AI with Melody so they could warn Hive off. This was a terrible place for an AI to be, with two nations that hated AI and possibly isolated on a wreck with no way out. A 0.75 should know better, but maybe not. Even AI made mistakes.

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 11:10 am**

Commander Alexander Spencer, CF
Ego te Provoco, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

The four Colonial Officers listened in grim silence to what they were being told. Their expressions ranging from deeply concerned to outright furious, and the more information they heard the deeper their concern became. It was the first time that they were hearing details about the Maxis Laudian AIs, and were able to compare and contrast them to the Cylons and their capabilities. It seemed that these AIs remained far more digitally-based than the Cylons, who had long enjoyed physical form primarily through the Centurions, which had both its advantages and disadvantages. It was obvious however that these AI were just as dangerous, and that it was far easier for them to hide themselves than it would be for a Cylon, being large chrome-plated mechanical forms, and that was certainly a cause for concern. Even if the Boneyard’s location was to be discovered, the risk was of a military attack rather than any sort of infiltration, after all it was not like a Centurion would be able sneak around without being detected very quickly. By contrast, these Maxis Laudian AIs could hide in any system and move about undetected. The Twelve Colonies had shied away from computer networks in the military to avoid the damage done by Cylon viruses and infiltration, against a sentient computer programme (or an active Cylon incursion) the danger was far, far more serious.

Commander Spencer was immediately glad that he had ordered the Ares sealed off and put under a guard, and that his people had been able to get off the ship without any issues, and that he had ordered Whiplash’s Raptor to be quarantined and checked although there would be no way for a hostile system to get off the Raptor as it did not connect to any other systems. The question then became what to do about the situation now that it had been placed in their lap; he would prefer not to simply destroy the Ares, as old as she was she was still a Battlestar and although extensive work would be required it was conceivable that she could provide some useful service. Moreover, the ship had a long and bloody history that ought to be respected, even if she had been abandoned here for many decades, and simply destroying her did not sit right with him. There was also the fact that he would much prefer to keep this entire situation under wraps; Colonial morale was already delicate to say the least, the last thing he needed was for news of this AI threat, in the very heart of their last safe refuge, to get out and cause undue concern across the fleet.

“Lieutenant Commander, the Battlestar Ares has been sat in this facility for the last five decades… how on Kobol do you think that this AI of yours was able to get aboard,” Spencer asked once the foreign officer had finished speaking. “That is my most immediate concern… this facility is supposed to have been unknown to anyone but a very select few… if an AI from your world can find it then it’s entirely possible that it could, or indeed already has, warned the Cylons.”

Spencer paused.

“Moreover, now that we have this infestation to deal with, how do we get rid of one of your AIs as quickly as possible,” Spencer continued. “I would prefer not to have to destroy such a potentially valuable hull, so if that can be avoided it would be ideal.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 12:39 pm**

Colonial Reclamation Facility
Ego te Provoco
Captain Melody Insaro

Yaden looked like he was going to say something that he knew no one was going to like. Given what they were discussing there was very little to like about any of it.

“The best way would be to trigger whatever is your equivalent of core overload on the wreck, but given the current state of Ares, I assume that would involve having to actually bring fuel over there and power the ship up.” He brought up more information around him, a lot of it seeming to have red borders and warning symbols on them. “Hive does not have central files to wipe, but it does have a command node. A brain I guess?”

“A Queen?” Melody offered. “Like it’s namesake, a beehive?”

Yaden nodded, “we have programs which can be tweaked to modify its behavior... I cannot guarantee that’ll be a perfect or easy task as there’s no way if we broadcast it Hive would accept it. That thing has managed to stay active this long so it’s not stupid. That’s what gets a lot of people, they think ‘oh you’ve already eliminated so many why are there stragglers?’ Because the ones we’ve deactivated and caught early were the stupid ones, I imagine it’s a lot like your Cylons. The stupid ones get destroyed early, leaving the smart ones to teach others and figure out how to counter your tactics.”

“Commander,” Melody asked, “you never addressed Commander Spencer’s first question, how did it get out here?”

“Sorry Ma’am, Sir, it’s a repair swarm AI, it could of easily highjacked a small ship and flew it out to your colonies and lept from source to source until it heard about Boneyard and hitched a ride out here. On a ship being brought out to mothball that’s 1km long are you going to notice a few pieces extra pieces of debris the biggest of which is about a meter on it? Once it got here all it needed to do was avoid the occasional look over and scavenge materials, which the AI has been doing as noted by Haven from the restored CIC and cleaned passages around it.” Yaden paused at the withering look Melody was giving him and he flushed. “No offense to the Reclamation Facility workers, Hive learns to adapt so it’s not their fault if they didn’t know what they were looking for in an unknown AI from a nation you didn’t know existed.”

“Find the Queen, smoke ‘em out.” Haven said quietly, tapping his own controls to highlight the largest drone in the set still up in the hologram. “It’s our best chance at getting Ares back unharmed.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 1:33 pm**

Commander Alexander Spencer, CF
Ego te Provoco, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Commander Spencer nodded grimly; he supposed it certainly was possible. Although the location of the Boneyard had long been kept secret, its existence was a matter of public record as were the ships that were to be sent to it. He had to concede that it was possible that an artificial intelligence, one that were completely unknown to the Colonials and exceptionally good at hiding, would have been able to smuggle themselves aboard a ship that was to be retired. Once they were at the Boneyard, it would have been difficult but not impossible for such a stowaway to move between the ships, and it was well known that AI (or certainly the Cylons anyway) were patient if nothing else. It was a severe security breach, although even Spencer had to concede that it could have been worse, although it would be absolutely essential that the Ares was properly contained, both physically and electronically as the entire facility was kept under a tight degree of emissions control save for short-range wireless to prevent any chance of the Cylons detecting them, despite being some lightyears away from the Cyrannus Star System as it stood to reason that the Cylons would be searching for them.

Regardless, even if the security threat could be contained and the system’s secrecy maintained, it was a disastrous turn of events that threatened to derail the campaign before it could even begun. Whether it was through destroying the Ares or by taking it back by force and destroying this command node, it was unlikely that this was a matter that could be kept under wraps and the concerns that Spencer had already had were only going to be made worse.

“So, you are suggesting that we sent an assault team aboard the Ares, and then either disable or destroy the AI’s command node?” Spencer asked with a frown. “If we’re to do that, I need to know what physical resistance this thing can put up, and what sort of control it would have over a powerless Battlestar’s internal systems.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 2:41 pm**

Colonial Reclamation Facility
Ego te Provoco
Captain Melody Insaro

“Disable, preferably leaving enough of it intact we can highjack its function to shut down all its little minions, Sir.” Yaden corrected lightly. “Unless we outright manage to kill all them all in one fell swoop, we need to go into Hive’s data and disable everything so they don’t scurry off to some dark corner and start building another command node.”

Melody was finding it hard to discuss how to kill another AI. She was just here as the senior Laudian officer, she knew the warning against unknown broadcast files, how not to use your symbol no matter how bad you wanted to doodle, be careful around certain places and people. She had been hoping that she wouldn’t have to really worry about dying an unjust death out here. Apparently she did. Hive thought she had escaped and she hadn’t. It was hard not to seem depressed over this.

“As for resistance,” Yaden continued, bringing up the various drones Hive had at its command in finer detail. “None of these were designed to be dangerous to humans, but a lot of equipment can be dangerous when used incorrectly so following their various uses it possible that with enough of them they could swarm and start to chew on less protected parts of armored human. The nano bots should not cause a problem as they aren’t free ranging, they need a larger Hive drone nearby to ‘over see’ them. Some of these, like these here,” he highlighted one that was the second biggest one, “is designed to be a tiny plasma cutter to get through armor it needs to repair. If your airlocks and hatches are anything like our own they can be manually used so it’s possible with a bit of rewiring or careful manipulation it can close and open hatches onto people and worse, vent atmosphere. Big problem is that Hive isn’t a big target, it’s a bunch of tiny parts of a whole system.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:26 pm**

Commander Alexander Spencer, CF
Ego te Provoco, Colonial Fleet Reclamation Facility
Second Cylon War, Day 42

Commander Spencer nodded thoughtfully; it sounded like any assault to retake the ship would face a decidedly unconventional foe and would find itself dramatically outnumbered by small, but dangerous, enemies. It was not the kind of enemy that the Colonial Marine Corps was trained to fight, which was alternatively Cylons or other humans depending on the situation. The Colonial Marines were experts in small-unit tactics and close-quarters battle, but this was not exactly a situation in which either of those specialities would be particularly useful.

“All the hatches aboard a ship as old as the Ares are completely manual and mechanical in nature, however we do have a hard-wired system to vent various sections of the ship in the event of a fire threatening magazines or fuel lines, so we’ll have to fight in suits,” Spencer commented with distaste, knowing his Marines would be less than pleased. “I think it’s probably best of my detachment commander gets with your people to go over some sort of plan, if we rush into this mess it’s going to be a clusterfrak from the get go, I fear.”

Spencer sighed and shook his head.

“I don’t suppose there’s much point in attempting to negotiate with this thing?” He frowned. “Even the Cylons negotiated at the end of the last war… although I suppose that was just to buy time for the mess we find ourselves in now.”

Posted: **Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:43 pm**

Colonial Reclamation Facility
Ego te Provoco
Captain Melody Insaro

Yaden and Haven both looked almost offended at the suggestion of trying to negotiate with an AI. Melody looks oddly detached from the conversation, like she was listening but not really clocking in to the discussion.

“We don’t negotiate with AI. Not with the danger they pose,” Haven responded, a bit more savage than nessesary, with neither Melody or Yaden checking the young officer for the outburst though Yaden spared a sympathetic glance to him.

“All AI are to be deactivated as soon as they are found. We cannot risk another incident of an AI taking over a major system or network.” Melody’s voice was soft and oddly hollow, “I mean, look what it’s repairing.”

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