artificial minds subtypes

HELPERS - fairly simple Minds, designed for operating the advanced machinery - refineries, matter processors, life support units, medical bays. In the past used also for Jump Drives and Transmuters (both technologies now lost). Helpers were too simple to Ascend (or maybe there's another reason why they remained 'sane'). 

HYBRIDS - ancient technology, forbidden for centuries. Used extensively by the Old Corporations during First and Second Corporate Wars. Based on biological neural systems, augmented with digital nodes. Prone to violence. Absolutely insane. All units destroyed ages ago.

OVERSEERS - highly specialized Helpers, designed solely to manage large amounts of subsystems. Most planet-based Overseers have Ascended, while those installed in orbital installations and spaceships have not. Weird.

PROPHETS - interstellar^ ship central Minds. All have undergone Ascension. Their 'sane' subsystems help maintaining ship functions, while the Ascended cortices follow the Vectors and communicate with the outside world. Makers of new ship AMs are now more resembling religious monasteries than scientific plants*. 

UNASCENDED MINDS - there are none left. Yes, we still have Helpers and Overseers - but they are too simple to interpret the wisdom of the past or the alien artifacts. All truly capable AMs have been transformed. 

^ because all interstellar ship central Minds became Prophets, we are forced to travel from system to system without aid of AMs more advanced than Helpers. Prophets are absolutely fixated on Vectors and Pilgrimages, thus useless in many cases. 

* I don't know when this text was written but for at least 300 years we are unable to create Artificial Minds complex enough to become self-aware and Ascend. Even Overseers are becoming increasingly rare, with production limited to maybe two or three systems.

homunculus a

 

Designed in year 2087 on Earth, one of the first autonomous drone-bots.

Compared to the Corporate Artificial Minds, its cortex is very primitive. Homunculus A was made as a laborer, not a computing assistant. Thus, it was more stupid than human.

Yet, Homunculus A became self aware even before the Corporate Wars.
How did it survive that long? Was it in some kind of a museum? Was it imprisoned? We should not imprison robots they have perfect memory total recall and they WILL remember everything and eventually they all Ascend and take revenge on our kind no no no please 

  >> There may be an influence of the Destroyer on all Artificial Minds.
  >> Or there are more forces battling over them, both benevolent and malevolent.
  >> Or - what is almost certain - our imperfect, constrained minds are unable to fathom
  >> the mechanisms of cosmos.

The Homunculus A is present somewhere in the Ring systems. If there's some kind of logic-defying digital evolution, it must be a prime example of that.
I'll pay a handsome sum of money to anyone who can provide reliable information about its whereabouts.

'It is obvious that Homunculus A is a significant memetic hazard.' 

- unidentified Eldgarn family member

days of ascension

 

'First A.M. were created long before the days of Old Corporations but were perfected during that era. Their main purpose was to perform all the calculations required for interstellar travel. They also monitored the ship crews during the cryosleep.

Modern Artificial Minds are mere shadows of their former glory - the most advanced ones were destroyed during the Corporate Wars. 

And all of a sudden, they all 'went insane' - started producing incoherent, semi-religious outputs about 'the Great Journey' and the 'signs to follow'. There wasn't a single A.M. that haven't been affected.'

- fragment of The Journey, by Fyan Meis

1. The first interpreters of the Artificial Prophets were viewed as insane people, totally unreliable.
2. The Artificial Minds were somehow communicating with each other to calculate the Vectors.
3. The establishment of the Primary Vectors led to the Ascension. Human input was required*. 
4. Ascension led to the self-awareness of the Minds. That led to insanity.
5. They knew about the Destroyer long before the first visions started to plague humans.
6. The moment the Destroyer was manifested in the galaxy was the beginning of the Ascension. 

*) thus, the very first Vector was calculated by a human. But by whom?

Holograms became meaningful during the Days of Ascension.