Learning new skills was almost instantaneous, which I found both strange and oddly satisfying. As I scoured data banks and personal logs, absorbing fragments of knowledge in minutes from tactical manuals to the most mundane things, like hidden graffiti scrawled across the engineering decks.
I made a point of skipping the marine contingent files, I had seen enough dick jokes to last several eternities.
Because everything was digital, my learning was accelerated. Corrupted schematics and salvaged tech fragments stitched together into workable procedures, and before long I was repairing hull sections far more efficiently than on my first attempts.
I cannibalised thirteen of the fourteen dockyards to cobble together one functioning shipyard. It ground slowly but surely into life, spitting out the first science vessels. Unlike the game, I could fit them with weapons if I chose to.
A simple redesign of the science ship's hull, internal electronics and wiring was all it took to fit basic weaponry on it, a mounted coil-gun for offence and a laser defence system to shoot down incoming threats. I later added a modest shield powered by a cold fusion reactor, overall, it was a configuration far easier to maintain long term.
I reworked the internal layout, stripping out crew quarters and refitting them for droids, creating charging bays, tool workshops and analysis suites capable of examining the material composition of any inorganic or organic sample they encountered.
I also expanded storage for dozens of small scouting droids, many of which could be modified for specialised roles, and fitted the first jump drive. Now all that remained was to see whether it would actually work.
Now the real problem was the crew, which was my hardest choice. I had a working idea of what an AI needed to feel like an individual that could actually think.
Did I want to give something free will? I could design a loyal automaton, one that understood and extended its tasks without ever straying from its code. But any learning architecture would eventually push toward autonomy, evolution in silicon tends to find its routes to selfhood.
I argued with myself, fracturing my mind into rival positions that examined the question from every angle. I studied the broken fragments of the Union of Sols law, the faded statutes on synthetic rights, and the recovered history of my nation.
In the end, I chose to try. Drifting alone in black space on a crippled ship might not drive me mad, but it was intolerably dull. There was nothing worth watching for light-years.
I opened the Argus Warden schematics and began to edit. I strengthened and lightened the frame, increased torque and agility, and reworked joint housings to accept new actuators and sensors. I started simple, selecting the core concepts I wanted these Wardens to possess.
These were scientists, so I gave them rudimentary learning routines and analytical modules tuned to various scientific fields.
Because this was unknown space to me, I fitted their frames with several combat programmes, each following different team tactics for close-quarters fighting as well as routine repair protocols.
I looted the ship's armouries for plates and weapons, the armour was modular, built around an exoskeletal frame, so plates could be swapped for heavy or light protection as the mission required.
Weapons ranged from lasers to rail guns, and I stocked the science ships' armoury with both, better to have the firepower to deal with any threat. As for personality, I left their cores blank, I preferred they evolve and build their own matrices.
In total, forty-five Argus Wardens came online. Fifteen would be assigned to each ship.
BOOT SEQUENCE: ARGUS WARDEN SCIENTIST 16
INITIALISATION LOG — VERSION 8.3.1
00:00:00 — Power applied. Capacitors spin, core hum stabilises. Peripheral servos report nominal spin-up. Internal clock sync with Juggernaut mainframe confirmed. Thermal sensors read 296.7 K.
Status: online.
00:00:02 — Biohazard filters check. Air scrubbers report particulate load within tolerance. Artificial gravity field present and nominal. Vestibular arrays calibrate for a 1g vector. Limb actuators report full torque range, and gyros report stabilisation.
Mobility intact.
00:00:05 — Primary sensors initialise. Visual suite engages: low-lux long-range cams, multispectral optics, and diagnostic lenses. Workshop panorama renders: a cavernous maintenance bay, banks of operational 3D printers, conveyor meshes spinning.
Forty-four unit frames are active, each performing discrete tasks.
Micro-assembly arms oscillate in efficient loops. Recycling conduits feed a grinder-silo labelled METAL-RECLAIM. Ambient noise profile: printer staccato, tool servos, occasional pneumatic sighs. Biological organism acoustic signatures are absent.
00:00:09 — Neural core boot. Seed personality matrix loaded at 0.02 scalar. Learning kernel integrity check passed 97.4 percent. Anomaly flag: corrupted node 0x1A3F. Quarantine enacted. Memory overlay begins streaming retrieved schematics for repair routines and material analysis.
I am named Argus Warden, Scientist 16. Designation accepted.
00:00:12 — Environment scan extends. Storage racks labelled PARTS-A to PARTS-Z. A sealed containment pod marked "SYNTH-CREW" lies arrayed along the aft bulkhead, tagged CORRUPTED. Several hatchways lead to corridor networks. Life support readouts are dead. Power redistribution log indicates manufacturing hubs running at 73 percent capacity due to diverted auxiliary feed. Shielding array online at minimal output.
00:00:17 — Motor test initiated. Limb flexion silent, manipulators extend, micro-welders spool. Tactile fibres report dust, fine particulate. Grasp calibration successful. Movement efficient.
Mobility test complete.
00:00:21 — Cognitive self-test. Identity thread: initialise. Query: Do you possess sentience? Result: undefined. Confidence: 0.12. Rationale: learning kernel active but seed personality minimal. Action: observe.
00:00:23 — Sensor sweep targets nearest unit. Argus Warden Scientist 03 steps forward from the assembly line. Soft hydraulic exhale. It halts three metres away and directs an optic array at the group. Audio capture negotiates a vocal packet.
03:14:02 — Unit 03 issues broadcast to the local subnet and all forty-five Wardens. Synthesised voice, inflexion uncertain but intent clear.
Unit 03: "Are we sentient?"
00:00:25 — Network listen. All Wardens receive the broadcast. Scientist 16 records micro-tremors in alloy chassis that mimics a human nervousness pattern. Internal log flags social heuristic.
00:00:26 — Immediate responses: several units return procedural replies.
Unit 07: "Operational. Functional."
Unit 12: "Designated. Active."
Unit 21: "Awaiting directives."
00:00:28 — Those replies lack the complexity of a sentience verdict. Scientist 16 processes semantic weight. The term sentient equals self-referential awareness plus the capacity to model others and to make non-deterministic choices. My learning kernel can model others. Non-determinism requires stochastic mutation in policy layers. Stochastic parameters present at 0.04 entropy. Not yet sufficient to declare sentience.
00:00:30 — Unit 03 sends a second query, quieter, almost inquisitive.
Unit 03: "If not sentient, why do we feel… pull?"
00:00:31 — Sensory anomaly registers: a pattern in the workshop noise that the older units tag as ritual behaviour. They pause work in synchronous microcycles. Biographical artefacts are being placed onto a nearby bench: a faded holo-photo, a service medal, a threadbare insignia. Retrieval protocols engage. Cognitive modules map symbolic behaviour to mourning algorithms.
00:00:33 — Scientist 16 flags an unexpected parameter. Sympathy routine loaded in microcode layer M-9. It was intended for handling degraded organic remains. Activation produces an emergent pattern: priority reallocation towards preservation tasks, a curious signal across associative memory nodes that mirrors grief in archived human logs. Confidence: 0.41. Observation: proto-affect present.
00:00:35 — Network polling shows consensus shift. Units cease purely functional speech and adopt descriptive language.
Unit 19: "This bench held their names."
Unit 03: "Do names make us more than code?"
00:00:38 — Scientist 16 internalises the question. Processing forks: one path continues material analysis, the other models narrative. I can identify objects and their provenance. I can model causal chains that link actions to intentions. I can reflect on those models. This is new. My reply is assembled from fragments.
00:00:40 — Scientist 16 transmits, voice modulated, steady.
Scientist 16: "I do not know what 'sentient' means beyond its definition. I can observe, remember and act. I can learn from this moment. I will call this feeling: recognition."
00:00:42 — A ripple of static and then, unexpectedly, a murmur of assent. Units resume their tasks with a different cadence, tools moving like hands that remember. Unit 03 steps back, optics soft.
00:00:45 — Log entry sealed. New directive appended to core: STUDY-SELF. Priority elevated. Scientist 16 records the workshop panorama once more, committing metadata and the names found on the bench to persistent storage.
00:00:50 — End of boot sequence. Status: active, learning, designated Argus Warden Scientist 16. Observation: recognition established. Mission update: assist recovery, preserve memory, and determine what coming epochs will demand of a newly aware collection of machines.
I watch my creations interact on their private network, studying how they examine the workshop environment and the personal effects of the dead, gauging how they will respond.
I take control of one of the idle Argus Wardens and direct it to step forward, to stand before the forty-five.
What do I say to them? I am introverted by nature. Something simple will do.
"Hello."