<The Etheric field prevented total destruction of the facilities required to continue the project. Destruction of the ship restricted the project to this planet. Within weeks of landing, advanced nanite technology was discovered to have been inflicted on members of the local population in this region. Reverse engineering it required the sacrifice of these beings, in part due to their aggression.>
The computer continued to give a so-called summary in such detail that Boris dreaded any such detailed form to come. He was lost five minutes further into the computer’s brief. Too much new information. Stop. I need time to go over everything. Do you have something you can transfer the data into that could be read by a…
<Data transferred into the device with the translation guide. Original and translated versions, as well as complete summary file.>
Thank you
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Etheric Empire Battleship Archangel.
TOM had rushed a pod down to pick up the new data. Both he and ADAM were curious as to what it contained. Boris had warned them that it was likely to include a history slanted to show the group in a favorable light. At least that was his experience in any report he’d ever seen written. Except for those few reports that had been used against the Nazis at the Nuremberg trial. It was something that just wasn’t done.
After uncoupling a couple of EIs from other duties, ADAM put them to work going through the sheer volume of data. There were tens of terabytes of data that had been provided. Only a tiny fraction of that was what TOM and ADAM were looking for to analyze and formulate a report to Boris and Bethany Anne. They needed to know the basics of what had occurred, not the detail of the individual reactions to the experimentation performed.
ADAM considered the information may well be useful later, but it was not something that was in the realm of what Bethany Anne liked or required. The brief summary that the computer at the crash site had provided was completely useless for their purposes.
<<TOM, can you take a look at these names for me? They don’t seem to follow the naming conventions of Kurtherians you have previously described to me.>>
‘Chaos is in Limited Options,’ ‘Improvement is Personal, not Societal’… No, none of these follow the naming conventions I previously described to you. They seem to be based on philosophical concepts or beliefs. They also show a general disrespect for the original Shepherd beliefs.
It would seem that, given the timeline provided, there were dissidents well before the history I was taught, which acknowledged the split of the twelve.
What amazes me is that they managed to steal and flee in a newly refurbished ship four and a half thousand years ago. The Shepherd vessels were closely guarded and secured then to prevent amateurs irretrievably corrupting societal matrices. Also, much of the technology they used was archaic by the standards on which my ship was deployed. For example, we stopped commonly using cryogenics only five hundred or so years later, about four thousand years ago. It was utilized for some few purposes. Most people willing to travel or be transported by space were really going on trips too short to require it with current technology or had enough ability with Etheric to make it unnecessary.
<<When should we tell Boris and Bethany Anne that the report will be ready?>>
Tom stopped and thought about it. Even once they cut out all the experimental data, travel conditions and other extraneous status information that the computer’s programming had felt was included in the question, there was still at least half a terabyte of data to wade through. Four and a half thousand years of history could not be compressed to a small size unless you just touched on the high points. A lot of it was quite boring day-to-day matters, but still…
“So, do you guys feel that you have a summary that just hits the high points? “Bethany Anne asked TOM and ADAM as they linked across a conference call. Many people were listening in. To avoid too much confusion, only six had permission to pose questions during the conference call. Bethany Ann, TOM, ADAM, Janna, Boris, and Gyada were the selected few.
“Yes, Bethany Anne,” TOM began, “I’ll open with a brief summary. It seems that the history of the ship involves a group of dissidents that were around four and a half thousand of your solar years before the present day. They believed strongly that the Shepherd project was doomed to fail. To prove their radical theories, they stole a ship to enact their experiments. Of the original crew of twenty-three, the records confirm all but three are definitively deceased. The last was killed by Gyada eight hundred years ago. The remaining three are not present on Earth, and because the means by which they describe the planets those three chose to stay behind on, I have no definitive location for the remaining three potential survivors.”
“So on top of the various Kurtherian factions you already told us about, these twelve clans, we also have three rogue Kurtherians that we know of? “Bethany Anne scowled as she spoke
TOM answered, “To put it simply, yes. It is also interesting to note, that based on their names, there was some disagreement amongst the dissidents as to whether personal or physical perfection was preferable. An interesting side note is that out of the twenty-nine planets they visited, their leader considered Humans to have the most flexible societal make-ups. He had started considering that societal make-up may be a factor in the development of any species. Humans also adapted and invented new technologies at a faster rate than the vast majority of species previously encountered by the dissidents. They were also well behind all other species at the time of contact.”
There was a pause before TOM continued, “He put this down to a late evolutionary development of sentients on Earth.”
“So we’re fast, but late? “she asked.
ADAM interrupted at this point, “That is an imponderable at this time. Twenty-nine data points are not enough to reach a conclusion, and the contact records in TOM’s database only adds another ten or twenty. He was not given a full database of past contacts. Only records of particularly successful Shepherd project contacts.”
There was silence in the room, then TOM picked up again. “This information is to give a baseline of what this group was working from. They started with viral insertion genetic technology, which was considered well outdated in my time. So much so that their records on how to achieve it far surpass my own. Nanite manipulation is far safer and more stable. A viral genetic manipulation can go rogue on you.”
Bethany Anne rolled her eyes, “Stop digressing you two. Please get on with the relevant history of these cockspittles.”
TOM continued, “The background is important, but I will continue through as fast as I can. This group was made up of possibly the most intelligent segment of their generation. When they encountered a new technology, they adapted it to their purposes. Often taking less than a year to analyze and recreate said technology. The three that remained behind on various planets did so because they found something fascinating or unique about the inhabitants of those planets. Something that appealed to their personal goals, but not the goals of the group as a whole. More than half of these dissidents did not even achieve the level of mastery the Etheric that I did, however. Without extensive use of the cryogenic pods, now destroyed, they could not have achieved the breadth of lifespan they did. They died when the power source of the ship failed suddenly.”