A/N

Anyways, So I have News that is both good and bad, good news is I have been getting a lot of overtime recently at work, shit tons. They moved some people around and I had to pick up some of the slack. Bad news is that means less free time for me. Now I have this, and two other side chapters partway done. Chapter 7 though is coming along gruelingly slowly partially because I have like three different ways I could go, and I am constantly debating which I should roll with. One of the other side chapters should be up by the end of September. No promises though, hopefully things will be settled at work giving me some extra time off soon.

Lack of time=lack of editing, gonna see about having some friends do the proof reading for me, it aught to give them something interesting to do in their free time, dealing with my atrocious grammar and overuse of commas.

The concept of having an AI named ghost was because of Iron Maiden, Ghost Navigator. Seemed apropos at the time so I decided to roll with it.

This chapter takes place during the princess 3-day hissy fit in which she was actually using ghost and scarlet to collect data on the crew.

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The princess sits at a small desk in her quarters alone while accessing a data terminal that was tied into the ships main QMC with a pair of goggles sitting on said desk.

“Ghost sir, what is your earliest memory?”

“Well lil princess that is classified.”

“Well, fine what is your earliest unclassified memory?”

“It is something boring.”

“I would like to see it anyways, please”

“All right put on the goggles I will override your sensory input and make it seem as if you were there. Don’t talk cause this takes a lot of effort to maintain. And don’t tell anyone, I will explain afterwards.”

Ghost says to her as she places the goggles over her face and takes a seat; her surroundings suddenly grey out, only to slowly fade back in on the bridge of a small ship.

“Mr. Captain Sir, as we wait here could you tell me a story before we rest for the evening?” Says a little girl standing on a makeshift Holo-deck, which was a sad sight to behold. Being held together with duct tape and glue, the Holo-deck was a prototype that was flickering in and out unstably adding to the image of the pitiful state of the still developing AI.

“Luna, I just told you one last night.” Said a tall bearded Human sitting in the command chair of a light reconnaissance Cruiser that was drifting randomly through space. Offline command consoles surrounded him as he sat in the overly large ship designed for a max of three men, minimum one and a VI.

“Oh Please Sir please oh please oh double pretty please with sprinkles on top.”

Sighing and chuckling at the same time the man responds;

“Very well Luna, turn off the Holo-deck and start redesignating your subroutines for self maintenance and upkeep, I will once you give me confirmation.”

“Aye, Aye Sir… Done and Done” says the girl in the Holo-deck as she starts fading out, after she finishes fading her voice comes out of the mans chair which had speakers on either side of the head piece, she says;

“I am ready please begin I am ready, ohh is it the one about the girl, the cat, and the crazy caterpillar. Or ohh uhh ohh hhhow about the one about with the girl in the hood with the scythe slaying monsters. Or even better the one about the girl and the fairy and the crazy toe less sisters?”

“Cool your jets rocket, I wont tell you any of those. I will tell you a new one does that sound good?”

“Yaaaayyy!!!, what’s it about?” she says with great excitement.

“It is a story based around events which happened in history so listen for the seeds of truth, and in time you will understand better. No questions now till the end I don’t want to lose my spot part way through” the man said as he propped his feet on the offline main command console and made himself comfortable as he then began recounting a story.

“A Long time ago in a Far away land there was an Island on which resided 3 main tribes. They each lived on their own corner of the triangular shaped Island and they maintained peace and harmony as they tended and cared for their land. Occasionally they would trade between each other however true interaction between the hierarchies of the three was rare.

The first tribe was the Crawlers, they were massive beings each at least twice the size of a regular man, and they were incredibly strong and powerful warriors. They claimed the eastern side of the island as their own. The entire race new how to fight and survive and they slowly developed their strength in that regard however, they never went to war. They believed in the right off all things to follow a path in life and that all beings should be allowed to choose their own path without hindrances. To them despite being fierce warriors at heart they were more gentle than a slight spring wind carrying a cherry blossom, incapable of hurting even a fly.

The second tribe was the Kins these were the most xenophobic of the groups trading rarely and keeping to themselves. They stood merely two heads taller than the average man and bore a physique to match. These beings chose the west side of the island to call their own. Their strength lay in that the very forces of nature would heed their beck and call. Using this power, they flourished producing many crops and living with much ease on their side. With their belief in themselves being one with Nature they too were pacifists believing that taking a life would result in a punishment from nature due to nature taking things at its own pace. This not only taught them peace but patience.

Then on the south side, which was the largest by a decent margin lived the third tribe, the Men. They were by what our species would define as normal, yet their lifespan were much shorter than the other two tribes, merely living to be over 100 years old as opposed to three or even 5 hundred as some beings in the other tribes would. This was their strength.

The Men whose lives were much shorter learned that since they had a limited time to live they must live passionately and fruitfully. As a result, they rapidly increased in population; soon this one tribe’s population was twice the other two tribes put together. They did not have beliefs in such lofty ideals as the other tribes did; instead, what they had was a belief that the only important thing was survival and domination. This lack of ideas is what started everything, without any sort of moral guide, they quickly became corrupt and immoral.

There was a guiding force over all the groups a treaty of sort that said that no one tribe would assault the other and set out guidelines for how all tribes must be run. This was created by the Kins who could in a way talk to the land, they did this to protect it and all beings from harm. With a handful of select rules and a council of elders placed in their position by the people. No one person could be an elder more than twice and their times as elder were limited.

The lack of morals in the tribe of the Men eventually caused their once peaceful society to spiral out of control. A select few wrested control of their society away from the council, destroyed their rules, and set themselves in control. A battle ensued and half of the tribe died off. Then the trouble began. In the take over someone from the kin tribe in order to teach the men humility and warn them away form the path of arrogance, war, and debauchery set fire to their crops.

This Kin, with the assistance of a rogue Crawler did it without the permission of his tribe, and managed to destroy a decent portion In hopes that it would cause them to stop fighting and band together. It was enough to affect the men’s lively hood; it was enough to be noticed. The men looked to their new leader for a solution, and he finding out about the two who caused this disaster to fall upon his people while unwilling to make the people who put him in power suffer, decided that he would force the other tribes to give them reparations in order to make up for the missing crops.

The other two tribes received the official messengers with open arms, unknowing of what their individuals did to the tribe of men only to receive a message that threatened them with violence if they did not agree to give over supplies. They laughed in the faces of the messengers and sent them back with a message of how they would not give in, if he had asked kindly they would have been glad to share, but by threatening he would receive nothing instead. The two tribes did this hoping he would learn to show humility. Instead, it angered him and he then made a mistake by sending armed envoys to demand instead of just resources he wanted fertile fields to grow more crops on to increase his tribes produce. Regardless of whether or not they could utilize them, especially since during the coup many people died.

The armed envoys went to the other tribes and were sent back, disarmed and with a message that the new leaders arrogance must stop. In his anger, he rallied his people and led them to war against the other two tribes who banded together for defense.

They fought for many days on end and all of the once fertile fields lush with crops had been trampled, destroyed and even burned to the ground eventually it reached a stalemate between the 2 sides.” the man said as he sighed to himself.

“What’s wrong sir?” The little girl’s voice came from the console when asking.

“Haaaah The problem Luna is that I have no idea how this story is going to end.”

“Can’t you make one up Sir?? I really want to hear the end of the story.”

“Sorry Luna, I said that it was based off of history didn’t I. Now shut down your main routines, I will tell you the end once I manage to find out how it ends for myself.”

“Ok Sir, I understand. Shutting down main routines wake me when you need me, or when I can hear another story.”

“Sleep well Luna.” The man said as he leaned forward and activated his command console.

“Status report Ghost,

“All systems green and engines will be able to function at 93% of full capacity in 5 minutes.”

“Did you override the Local control?”

“Negative, Updating… 98% in 6 minutes capable.”

“Good, thank you Ghost, I have a question for you.”

“Go ahead sir.”

“Do you feel?”

“I don’t understand your question sir?”

“Can you, are you capable of feeling emotions as Luna does?”

“Sir you know it is common knowledge that Virtual intelligences such as myself can not feel, or express emotion.”

*Sigh “Do you want to be able to possess emotion, to feel?”

“Sir, I do not want anything, the closest thing I have to a will is my programming code that has me attempt to do my best to ensure your survival.”

“I will have to work on that once I get Luna finished. I would like it if you would be able to have emotions ghost, it would be interesting to hear how you feel. Ghost, Modify your code for me would you, place Luna’s survival priority on par with mine, check that have it exceed mine.”

“Sir I,”

“Don’t give me that shit just do it”

“If the council…”

“Fuck the council, if they have a problem with it I would love to see them

A. Catch me with proof, and

B. do something about it.

I am tired of being their damn errand boy, I have gone above and beyond what they have asked but they insist on one more mission each fucking time. If I don’t get my crew back safe and sound soon… The council won’t be able to know jack shit after what I will do. Change the damn code over-ride authorization code Omega -Theta -Gamma -Epsilon -Delta Comply.”

“Compliance. Code changed successfully, would you like to back up the previ…”

“No, No backup lets just get the hell out of here before they manage to find us again. And don’t mention the council to me again, its bad enough that I have to deal with them without being reminded about it before I see their ugly mugs.” the man says cutting off Ghost as he sits up.

“Aye, Aye Captain Sir.”

A chuckle resounds through the cockpit “Ghost, if I didn’t know any better I would say that was Sarcasm.”

The bridge of the ship fades out, and reality fades back in on the princess who found herself standing up and covered in sweat.

“Who was that Ghost?”

“The Cap’n, what do you think?”

“The aura he gives off is terrifying, and that was how long ago?”

“Let’s see that took place during the War of Expansion est. 2 million year ago for relative standards, Luna being the first true AI was still developing, Humanity was losing the war which was started over greed laziness, or vengeance all depending on the point of view. And that memory was when the captain told me he would turn me from a VI to an AI.”

“So that little girl was Luna?”

“Yepo, she has matured a lot since then, trust me.”

“What was all that about the tribes though?”

“There were originally only three sentient races throughout the galaxy, the Magikin, the Insectoid, and the Humans.”

“What about Therioceph, and Dradar, and the Aetherium?”

“All of those came along as a result of cross breeding, and Gene splicing. Therioceph came from humans splicing their genes with those of animals in order to survive better during the age of exploration, a lot of the early colonization attempts were on extremely harsh planets so to increase survivability they spliced. Over time they developed their own culture and split off of humanity to found their own nation.”

“And the Biomechatronic?”

“During the war humanity survived due to their technological advancements and superiority, after the war a lot of scientist did not like working under the human council before they collapsed. They left and formed their own society of ‘mad scientists’ augmenting themselves with cybernetic tech, a lot of which the captain gave them. He figured the less power the human council had the better off all races would be.”

“Who was this council?”

“Governing body of humanity after a coup occurred in which a democracy fell. Look, the reason I told you not to mention this was because a lot of the crew have bad memories from that war. Many old crewmembers were affected negatively, that was before immortality procedure was perfected.”

“Thank you ghost, that is a lot of information, you have opened my eyes. I never knew about that, I will have to dig through some more of this old info. I also won’t bring up to the crew.”

“Good, No prob Princess Puma, and if you wait a little Scarlet has got a pretty good one you might enjoy watching with Henry. And I won’t tell anyone about your lack of moping.”

“Thank you, and waiiittt a, Princess Puma???”

Congrats and many thanks to everyone for reading this far, I need 3-ish secret society names, the first few suggestions will be reviewed by the command crew and myself with a high likelihood of use.

So far the order of Wandering Immortals, and brotherhood of shadows have been taken.

Suggestions would be for the following four so shoot away if you have any suggestions.

Dradarians (Really need a good one for these guys)

Magikin

Aetherium

Insectoid