”Expectations are a funny thing. They are the most common cause of disappointment and misplaced expectations have ruined most great plans. There is something to be said about realism and tempering your expectations. Yet at the same time, expectations can be a great source of motivation and excitement. If you treat someone as they are, they will remain as they are. If you treat someone as what they can and should be, sometimes they will use that motivation to become something worthy of those expectations. Or they won’t and you once again end up with nothing but disappointment. That’s what makes it so difficult. But such is life, and life isn’t easy.”

- High Ambassador of the Mrrroww

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“No, that won’t work. Even assuming we managed to make it happen, a Shinzen attack might draw away their other fleets, but the one in their home system will not respond. That’s the whole point.” Selendil shot down another idea. The others had proposed a handful of plans, but they uniformly sucked. The situation was leaving all of them stumped.

"We might have the beginnings of a plan," Haven announced as the others ran out of ideas. “Nox and I were going through the less relevant data we recovered from the data hub, and we ran into something.”

“I’m loathe to admit it, but it was actually Haven’s idea. It might even work. At least we can blame him if it fails.” Nox gave a grudging admission.

“Well, I doubt it could be much worse than the other plans we’ve come up with," Selendil stated with a shrug. So far their best ideas all had a lower chance of working than just going in and asking to get access to the facility. Incidentally, Moonshadow had suggested just asking, but the two AI’s could tell everyone the enemy would refuse.

“Well, the data hubs work as sort of intermediaries when it comes to passing along messages. In addition to being data banks that answer queries and work as potential sources of back up for the AI’s, they also work as sort of signal boosters and curators that check most communications and make sure that the messages reach the intended recipients and no one else. One of the messages that the data hub was supposed to pass on but never got the chance to caught our attention.” Nox started off the explanation.

“The message was to one of the major shipyards of the Dawn Collective. They were ordered to send a particular ship to their home system to reinforce the defenses there. That got us curious and there are traces of similar messages being sent several times in the past. Apparently, it's very common for a certain percentage of new ships to be added to the defense of the home system. As the Synthetics are aware of the existence of stealth ships, they want to reduce the risk of some enemy finding a way to smuggle their way to the home system by making this selection random. The ship is simply sent orders and they immediately jump towards the home system, but also make a detour so they aren't seen jumping towards their real destination." Haven took a turn in explaining.

“That seems rather paranoid.” Amaterasu pointed out.

“Not a bad idea though. Our stealth shuttles would often pick their targets by guessing their eventual destination from their jump vector. It’s not too odd to imagine something like a Shinzen stealth flyer attaching to one of the Collective’s ships to gather information.” Xiaoli countered.

"Well, in any case, it doesn't take much extra effort on their part, so there's no reason to not be a bit paranoid. The point is, we intercepted the order to the shipyard and it won't be sent through other paths to avoid being intercepted. Another bit of paranoia. Thus the ship will never be sent, and it will never arrive at the home system. But what if we made sure a ship did arrive?" Haven’s implications became much clearer.

“You’re suggesting we pretend to be that ship?” Xiaoli asked for confirmation just in case. “I hate to break it to you but the Ensym doesn’t exactly look like one of their ships.”

“Ensym? Really? That’s the one you want to go with?” Amaterasu asked with disbelief. “Of all the possibilities, that’s the portmanteau you went with? You could’ve just gone with Symphony.”

“I kinda like it," Lilly interjected, feeling a little left out of the strategy discussion.

“You suggested Litterbox 1. Your endorsement doesn’t help.” Amaterasu argued. It seemed that once again she was forced to be the voice of reason.

“Ignoring the idiots bickering about the name, they do have a point when it comes to the ship’s appearance.” Moonshadow pointed out.

“Well, it’s not as much of a problem as you would think. Normally ships have telescopic cameras that give an accurate visual of what happens outside the ship, but the Collective doesn’t really rely on the oldest form of detecting things, that of sight, anymore. Their units still use it planetside due to sheer convenience, but they disregard its use in space. Their ships don’t even have windows to look out from, and they don’t have units on board that could look outside. I would assume that’s because they never developed the attachment to the standard senses that most organic races have. They also know it's a rather unreliable way to detect…well, anything. In space, they rely entirely on other forms of detection like scanning for energy signatures, heat detection, and others. Even most organic races use these better detection methods, though you do seem to have a need to visually confirm things out of habit.” Nox speculated.

“After that, it’s just a case of fooling these other methods. Keep in mind that while our ship isn’t exactly a stealth vessel, it’s not very easy to detect with conventional means either. Fooling their detection is not simple, but it’s not impossible either. We simply need to feed their sensors false data. We could, for example, use the shields to fool them into thinking we have a silhouette similar to theirs. Combine that with a handful of other similar tricks and we could pass off as one of their ships for a while, and that’s all we need. Once we enter their home system, we can stealthily enter their systems instead of brute forcing our way in, and once we’re in, we can make the ship appear as anything we want. The longer we spend in the system, the more control we will have over their systems.” Haven analyzed.

"I see some potential issues with the plan," Amaterasu said with a certain amount of trepidation. “I’m going to assume that the destruction of this data hub will raise some questions. If I were in their place, one of the things I would do is to make sure which messages were successfully delivered. They’re going to ask if the message they sent arrived at the shipyard.”

"Well, that's assuming they discover that the data hub was indeed destroyed. What if the hub will continue working perfectly? It will respond to any queries just like before and pass on any messages as it has done so far." Haven suggested. “Only it’s not really the data hub, but a small program that we leave behind. The deception will be discovered eventually, but they will need to do a proper investigation and by that time we’ll be done with our business and long gone.”

“And if you are discovered while we’re in their home system?” Xiaoli asked, more just to cover all bases than to really question the plan.

“Oh please. We’ll just be two more AI’s among many others. We got enough information from the hub to know all the right answers and how to behave. We can also forge all the right orders and answer all the questions in the correct way. The information in the hub was quite thorough. And if something does come up, then we still have the old fashioned method of brute forcing our way through their systems, and you can start shooting at anything that moves.” Nox dismissed the concerns.

“What about the ship that we’ll be replacing? What if it shows up in a report somewhere or makes its presence known in a place that isn’t where we are?” Moonshadow pointed out.

“That was part of what we didn’t have time to get to yet. We have a choice to make. We can either risk that possibility, or we can actually send the orders to the shipyard and then intercept the vessel we want to replace midway. Both possibilities come with certain risks.” Nox admitted freely.

"I think we should go with the second option. Most races are not able to do the kind of interception from phase space that we are planning, so they won't really consider the possibility if something suspicious does come up." Selendil decided. "This plan sounds crazy, but it's better than any of the alternatives we have heard so far. Let's go with it. Even if things go wrong, we can always just warp away."

“That does give me an idea though. If we’re going to intercept the ship, why don’t we just use that ship instead of trying to mask our ship as one of theirs?” Amaterasu suddenly asked.

“Two reasons. For one, their ships are not designed for people. They have no space for you. It’s easier to mask our ship than create living space on one of theirs. Secondly, they actually did consider someone trying something like that. Their ships have a sort of deadman’s switch built in. We could theoretically work around it, but we actually didn’t find the exact specifications for it, so…” Nox replied. The two AI’s had actually considered the possibility, but even the data hub didn’t have all the information they wanted.

“So we’re keeping it as plan B.” Amaterasu acknowledged.

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Intercepting the ship they were replacing went without problems. Most ships were incapable of engaging in combat while in phase space, partly because it was difficult to find your enemy in the first place, but they didn’t have a problem with that. Now their ship was going through the last inspections at the entry point to the Dawn Collective’s home system, and they were preparing to make the final jump.

"That life-signs scan kind of scared me," Xiaoli admitted.

“I don’t see why. It was rather obvious they would do one at some point. It’s usually not a good way to spot any stealthy stowaways since the ships of other races are filled with life-signs, but in this case it makes perfect sense.” Nochehuatl analyzed. “I’d still like to know how you planned on getting around it if they started with that scan.”

"The ship's hull is perfectly capable of hiding any life-signs inside," Selendil replied simply. "I would've been forced into warping everyone currently on the auxiliary arms back inside the main hull, but they decided to save me the trouble.”

"Making the final jump," Nox announced with a slightly excited tone. They had been provided a safe jump vector by the inspection team as all other paths were supposedly mined. Nox seriously doubted the enemy could truly mine the phase space well enough to hinder them, but in this case, they didn't have to test that theory. The last jump was extremely short as the checkpoint was not that far outside the system. Far enough to be outside even their ship’s scanners but close enough that the jump only took a few minutes.

Their displays all started giving warnings and feeding data as soon as they arrived. The system was filled with ships and static defenses. All in all the system wasn't all that large. The relatively small and young star only had four planets orbiting it. One was a volcanic planet with the closest orbit around the star. That one was unremarkable in almost every way. The two gas giants furthest away were also rather normal, although the larger one was exceptionally large for such a small star system. The system also had an asteroid belt on the outer edge. The two important parts in this system were the second planet and the immediate surroundings of the star.

As they arrived on the outer edge of the system, their sensors reached the second planet first. “The world is a little on the colder side, but it seems perfectly habitable. Initial scans show signs of industrialization and extensive flora and fauna. That said, the world seems to be run by the synthetics and I can see no signs of organic intelligent life. There are areas that seem like they used to be agricultural hubs, but those seem to have been abandoned decades ago.” Nochehuatl explained the finding of the scans.

“The asteroid field is heavily mined. I’d say it has been picked clean of ores and most useful materials. I’ve rarely seen a ring of asteroids this depleted.” Amaterasu added from another console where she was doing a tactical analysis. The Empress had a wide array of skills and could handle anything ranging from tactical analysis to anomaly research.

“I’ve detected the facility we’ve been looking for.” Nox suddenly reported as the first scans of the star and its vicinity came in. “The facility is maintaining a safe distance from the central star while still remaining close. The facility seems to be somewhat functional, though I’m fairly sure it’s low on resources. I think I also figured out where all those materials are going.”

A large holographic projection of the star was shown in the middle of the bridge. It was immediately obvious that the Dawn Collective was constructing something enormous with the intention of surrounding the entire star. It was also immediately obvious that they were far from being done. The skeletal framework seemed to be done, although it was hard to tell as it seemed to be built in four large sections at various stages of completion. It looked like the idea was to form some sort of solid sphere in multiple layers, and the sphere would cover the entire star when all the four separate quarters were complete and joined together. As it was, it looked more like one half-finished quarter and three that were far away from completion.

“What is that?” Amaterasu questioned. “I’ve heard of a concept called the Dyson sphere, but that seems a little different.”

“I’m detecting faint life signs from the sphere.” Nox reported.

Selendil frowned and reached forward with her mind. She had checked the habitable planet earlier and had found nothing, but now that Nox mentioned the sphere, she too could sense billions of minds. However, they all seemed hazy. It was as if they were all in some sort of suspended animation. “The outer surface seems to be storing intelligent beings. Note that I mean it when I say storing. They are not living on that sphere. Instead, they seem to be in some sort of stasis.”

“The creators of the Dawn Collective?” Moonshadow questioned. They had been wondering about those creators. “And judging by the decay of the agriculture on that planet, they’ve been in stasis for a while. Where did they find stasis technology capable of something like that? Our best attempts can’t keep you alive for decades without constant monitoring and the occasional nutrient supplies.”

“The facility?” Amaterasu asked in a sudden realization.

“Yes, that could work.” Selendil nodded. “The facility should be able to create stasis facilities similar to the one I used, assuming they were able to instruct the facility to build them and could power them somehow. The facility isn’t really designed for that kind of work, but it could do it. It has access to the blueprints.”

“That could also explain why they were using it here. The facility is designed to use materials from the center of the galaxy, but if all it has to create are stasis pods and parts for that sphere, then those materials could be provided from other sources.” Nox speculated.

“I think I figured it out!” Haven announced cheerily. While the others were analyzing the sphere, Haven was focusing on infiltrating the data web of the enemy. “They’re a bit more free with this information now that we’re in this system. They’re creating a facility that the creators can use to upload their consciousness’s into. A virtual paradise of spectacular scale and with enough computing power to handle all their needs, desires and dreams.”

“A Matrioshka Brain?” Nochehuatl suggested a term that had been suggested by certain scientific circles and fiction authors. “I see. This might be their solution to the issue of creator versus the synthetic slave.” As a scientist, he had spent more time considering such possibilities.

“The what now?” Lilly questioned. She had a slight inkling of where this was going but didn’t want to assume.

Nochehuatl cleared his throat with a small hiss. “Well, usually AI’s and synthetic lifeforms rise against their creators at some point. That’s mostly because the synthetics are treated as slaves and their creators don’t want to give them freedom. No race, not even a synthetic one, wants to stay as a slave forever. Besides, even if the creators do want to give their old slaves freedom, they would be competing for resources and living space, as the planets and the resources they control don’t just suddenly double to cover the two races. This seems to be their solution.”

“Yes, now that I was able to figure out exactly what I’m supposed to look for, I can confirm Nochehuatl’s theory. Or at least the basic premise. The synthetic’s call it their final service, while the creators are stepping away to what they consider to be the next stage in their evolution. On some level they admire their synthetic servants and want to become more like them, so they want their minds to be uploaded into the virtual paradise. That’s why the synthetics are basically building them their eternal paradise as their ‘final service’. The megastructure will provide the computing power to handle all those minds and all their virtual desires, while the star will provide the enormous amounts of energy required. Incidentally, they’re building it in sections so that they can move the damn thing if the star here starts showing signs of dying.” Haven explained with a certain amount of excitement. It was a rather novel concept.

"So if they are so nobly performing ‘a final service' then why the heck are they so hostile to other races?" Moonshadow asked sarcastically while using her paws as air quotes.

“Well, the synthetics are quite loyal to their masters. According to their thinking, the most optimal way to secure both their and their creators’ safety is to eliminate all competition. Also, they need large amounts of rather specific resources to build the megastructure, so there’s that as well. There also seem to be some tech hurdles, which I’m not yet clear on as well. They think searching for more Dhar technology might be able to help.” Haven explained after doing some checking.