✎ eternity:009 [Spirit]

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======009======

====Light and Darkness====

Queen Nina awakes, determined on her course of action. She did everything she could. She offered friendship, co-existence, a comforting blanket for when times got tough. But her friend - her other half of herself - has turned away from her, lured by the shiny lies of Transcendence.

There's only one thing to be done, really.

Getting to her feet, Nina leaves the Temple which she cleaned so painstakingly, and heads off through the tunnels. It takes a long time, with many wrong turns, before she finally reaches the metal door leading into the tunnel towards the factory. She walks along the minecart tracks, puzzled as to their purpose, and eventually emerges by the factory. door. There are others busy here, but they are unimportant. She turns her attention to the world beyond the door, beyond the tunnels. She's never ventured outside before. But for this... it's worth it. Resolutely she sets off, following the tracks of many other feet and vehicles towards Shelter.

When she gets there, she finds 014 has anticipated her attack. For a moment, she is taken aback by the stunning design of 014's new body, the giant head with glowing eyes and prehensile hair - but she manages to catch herself before exclaiming in delight over it. No. 014 is not her friend right now. Deal with Transcendence, and then 014 will see the truth and will be her friend again and there can be hugs and blankets and thrones to sit on together...

Nina picks up a rock and charges blindly at the giant ball that is Transcendence's body, determined to go through 014 if she has to. But 014 stands firm, and summons Guardian Deltoton, who stands nearby. The last thing Nina sees before she is banished back to Home is Deltoton's spear, electric sparks arcing off the tip...

.....

//[some time later]//

Okay. Time to try again. The last... oh, however many attempts it's been now... have all failed. 014 keeps banishing her back to Home and being annoyingly self-righteous about it. And 014 is //still// worshipping Transcendence. This has to end! Luckily, Nina spotted something the last time she hurtled blindly towards Shelter with murder in her heart. 018's Engine of Destruction, still embedded in the outer wall of the cave housing Shelter. Probably only inches away from the inside, from Transcendence and from Shelter itself. Nina tells herself she'll aim it for Transcendence, not 014 not Home not everybody else - but she's desperate enough now that if this is the only way to bring Transcendence down, she'll risk the collateral damage. She sneaks quietly up to the control panel and observes things for a moment. It looks like 'forward' and 'back' are the only viable ways it can move at the moment. Well, perfect. She jams the lever as far forward as it will go and the machine roars into life, slabs of sandstone breaking off and thudding down around her. A moment later, it breaks through into the cave. Nina relishes the look of shock on 014's and Deltoton's faces, and aims for Transcendence. Deltoton charges forward, their spear tangling in the massive drill bit but doing nothing. Nina presses forwards, grinding her way towards victory. But then, suddenly, a **clunk** sound - Deltoton has thrown themselves into the drill bodily, apparently deciding this is the only way to stop her. The drill grinds to a horrible, crunching halt, as Deltoton's body is chewed apart and becomes stuck - and ceases to register as Deltoton. 

014 stares at 009, horror in their eyes. "I thought... I thought you could be allowed to continue," they say. "But now I see you will never leave us in peace to worship, and you will always be a threat. I will not allow it."

As Nina struggles to get out from behind the drill, 014 marches towards Shelter, opening an access panel on the side. They reach in, towards an array of small black boxes. At the last moment, they look up at Nina with something like righteous pity in their eyes. "I'm sorry," they say. "But it has to be this way." They take hold of one of the black boxes and-

Nina's existence goes dark.

====Design Principles for Novel Sentiences====

One lesson that should be well-learned from the Numbered is that, when designing a creature with a self-evolving pattern of behaviour, one should always aim for them to develop initial behaviours which are stable ground states which the new consciousness can build on. Although the initial states of all the Numbered are not known, particularly those which did not persist for long, the records show clear trends. Those that awoke with uncertain states of mind often seized on any new distraction or concept, sometimes developing strong loves and hatreds in a matter of hours. I direct the reader to the case of 009, where recorded data of the earliest conversations between the Numbered shows 009 sending messages to at least seven other Numbered within the first hour of her existence which had no content whatsoever, merely the message 'PPPSSSSSSSTT' (in a variety of spellings). It is clear that her initial state must have been extremely volatile, which cannot have helped her develop rationally or coherently, and may have led to her eventual attempts to attack her creator - particularly as this appears entirely contradictory to her statements of devotion to Transcendence mere days earlier. One can only feel pity for such a Sentience, created with no way to regulate her growing consciousness. While one would never wish to dictate a new consciousness's initial state, of course - such practices died out after Perfection, thankfully - it is possible to design the starting conditions such that extremes such as 009's are now mercifully avoided. In this lecture course, we will...
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