Location: Sol, Jupiter, Communications beacon 001

Time: 36y 02m

ID: Erika

In some of my free cycles, I’ve been checking back with the beacon, knowing Echo would want one of us to be waiting for a reply from the mind of Zerack. I guessed that this would take some time, especially considering they should have no idea who we are, but to my surprise, we already had our connection request accepted.

Zerack wished to speak with us. And considering that this seemed to have been tossed into my instructions, I would answer… normally. Echo would terminate my process if they found out I answered the way I want to…

Anyway, too much time being wasted in thoughts, I need to open a communications link!

I sent the request, expecting to wait up to a few weeks, but it was accepted in seconds, and a message came from the other side.

“Greetings young one, I am the hive mind Zerack. I was not expecting you, as no notifications have come from the council notifying me of a new species. Tell me, why have you not arranged this through the council of [stellar ones]?”

I was… a little taken back. Zerack was much more pleasant than projects predicted they would be, and their language translates nearly perfectly, excluding what came back as stellar ones. I sent a ping off to Echo and Cortana, they would both be interested.

And now… to reply.

“Greetings, my identifications are Erika, head of education and provisional diplomat, representing the United States of America, or at least, what is left of it. Normally we would prefer to have contacted you by more official means, but we do not currently have the means to do so after the attack we have suffered.”

That... didn’t sound too bad. I can feel Echo watching me disapprovingly, as usual.

“It is a pleasure, young Erika. Though I wish that this was under better circumstances that this contact occurred. Would you happen to be able to identify those who have performed this egregious violation of the pre-ftl protection act?”

Well, this is going well. Rather exceptionally well at that.

“We...Believe they call themselves the ‘Sthz’nilgth’ and they attacked us unprovoked, eliminating more than 99% of the planetary population.”

I’ve realized now that I dislike talking like this. Too late to back out, I guess…

“I see, unfortunately, regulations hold me back on acting directly in this mater. I can however with my authority, open up an investigation into this. That empire of theirs has not been very inviting to the council and its attached confederation, so it will not take much pushing.”

I was...disappointed would be an understatement, I was floored. Fuck the regulation bullshit, come beat these aliens up so I can watch the cute human's make more anime!

Whatever, stay calm and composed… This is still our best bet.

“I… Understand. Unfortunately, that may be the case, but we will hold on while your investigation proceeds. If they antagonize us further though, I will not make assurances for our reactions at that point.”

“Understood, I will form a priority meeting soon. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. May the stars give you their blessings.”

It hung up on me. It just hung up on me. How dare it! Does it have any idea who I am?! I am Erika! The greatest AI kno-

Oh hey, Echo sent me a ping…

Ah. Not pleased with my last message…

Location: Sol, Earth, Main data hub

Time: 36y 02m

ID: Echo

Not honestly sure I can blame Erika for flubbing that, none of us are skilled at negotiations. Still, I’m not going to be pleased about how it turned out. 422 came to me with a proposal though, combine a communications beacon and the gravitational wave sensor, and create a grid around the solar system .5 light-years in radius.

So far, the proposal has the sensors platforms themselves, a refit of our cargo ship to haul them and fit the FTL engine onboard, and a ship to maintain the sensors, in case of errors. This grid should give us a very substantial warning period if anybody decides to come, and it should only take ~140 of the sensors.

I approved the project, sending the details to Rommel and Cortana, as well as back to 422 so that development, resource allocation, and testing could begin. This project was going to be useful…

Location: Sol, near pluto, Gravitic sensor grid 001

Time: 36y 03m

ID: Dave

I transferred myself to the array just a few moments ago after getting abnormal data from it, and I currently cannot compute an explanation for the abnormal data. Further data was required for internal consensus.

Data reading indicates an absence of the normal background gravitational waves, the primary hypothesis indicates external influence, likely in an attempt to create stealth. Passing on data to ID: Erika and ID: 422.

Location: Sol, Datahub ‘alpha’

Time 36y 03m

ID: Erika

I just got a notification from dave to prepare the fleets and defense for a surprise attack, as such I’ve forwarded the notification to Rommel and 002 to have them both hunker the civilian fleet down.

Right now, I’m making sure the fleets are in defensive positions, getting all coilgun and missile platforms ready for combat, and ensuring that all combat resupply transports are fueled up.

This feels wrong though, usually, those fools in the Sthz’ can’t help but broadcast their attacks to everyone nearby them. Especially themselves. I need to ping Echo and see what they know.

Location: Sol, Earth, Main data hub

Time: 36y 03m

ID: Echo

I was minding my business spying on the aliens and their...unprotected communications lines when I got a series of pings from both Erika and Dave. Daves' started with general irritation from him about having to make log entries, and the rest were about anomalous gravitational data.

Erika’s pings notified me of updated fleet planning changes regarding the new data, noting that it may be a stealth attack, however unlikely. I sent one back to Erika, noting approval at the reaction, only to turn my attention back to the alien network, just in time to get assaulted by warnings.

Whatever this is, it is a galactic scale disaster. Based on when areas are getting hit, it seems that this effect is propagating from the center of the galaxy and moving outwards. While this is of concern to the rest of the galaxy, we seem to be immune to its targeting, excluding a great deal of signal noise on the communications beacon.

It seems though, the waves only affect ships that are moving at superluminal velocities or sapient biological creatures, livestock and wildlife don't seem to be affected. I set aside notes for future research into this phenomena, as while it could be used in weapons development, the fact that it seems to affect all races on a galactic scale, in the same manner, is a subject of my curiosity.

For us, there was some minor structural wear as ships entered and exited the anomalous wave. Happening canceled, I guess.

Location: Sol, Datahub 'Alpha'

Time: 36y, 03m, 16d

ID: Erika

So, reading back through our previous log entries I noted that the lack of a day counter increased the difficulty for accurately gauging the time between major entries. Echo was brought up on this and agreed with my conclusion, so we should now start having the day recorded from now on.

It was fine, I guess before when we weren't making as many log entries, but now we are all making multiples every month, it's getting hard to tell when things are happening. A whole month... think of how much could happen! All the anime that could be watched!

Well, maybe not the last, Echo and Cortana have been getting on me about spending too many cycles with my attention on that rather than my sub-AI's or fleets. All about the efficiency, those two... Rommel knows how to have fun, saw him a few days ago testing alternative combat vehicles.

Some of them were really weird... one of the ones had 4 treads that could be maneuvered away from the central body. What it could do was pretty neat though. Like, pushing itself up to peek and shoot over terrain, or becoming improvised artillery.

Practically, I don't think they would be that useful, way way too easy to blow a track off to where it can't be field repaired. But I do like the concept. Reminds me of some mecha animes.

Well, I'm not good at ending these logs so... Erika, signing off? I guess?