The Mech Touch novel Chapter 5835

Chapter 5835 Unforeseen Circumstances

5835 Unforeseen Circumstances

The 'AI core array' that governed the operation of many of the essential systems of the Dominion of Man was more horrifying that Ves imagined!

He was already aware that the fleeters tended to invest heavily in AI core research. The Common Fleet Alliance never made it a secret that they had been trying to chase after the holy grail of sentient artificial intelligences.

Due to this unreasonable obsession, the researchers who dedicated their lives and careers to this goal tended to get really… creative.

Many researchers had already tried and failed all of the usual solutions. When no sentient AIs became forthcoming, they started to explore less conventional solutions.

Ves easily figured out that he had come face to face with one of the demented outcomes of these failed experiments.

The brains did not contain any coherent intelligences as far as he and Blinky could perceive.

This was despite the fact that he was pretty sure these brains used to belong to real people who had all lived for over a century!

The fact that they were all derived from potentates with the highest aptitude for piloting mechs made the sight extra horrifying to a mech designer!

Where did these brains come from? What did the fleeters do to convert them into organic AI cores? How did their performance diverge from conventional computing cores?

Ves had so many questions in his mind that he did not know where to begin.

Captain Zonrad Reze meanwhile looked just as taken aback, but for different reasons.

Despite the fact that he was a fleeter, Sigrund exhibited a visibly worse reaction to this macabre sight. He had rapidly counted the amount of brains that the fleeters had stuck inside a vat and chained them together to form a unified computing array.

While not all of the individual brain units were visible due to various structures blocking his sight, the captain of the Babylon Excavator estimated that the fleeters had stuffed over a thousand brain vats in this space!

"You have questions." Dread Captain Argile broke the silence.

"I do…"

"You may ask. I cannot provide you with all of the answers, but I shall do my best to offer sufficient clarification for you to be of service."

"Thank you, captain. These brains… are they taken from deceased mech pilots?"

"No. I can promise you that not a single of these extracted and preserved brains are taken from mech pilots."

Ves immediately let out a sigh in relief.

Volkert Argile smiled at Ves. "The providence of these brains are all sourced from deceased officers of the Common Fleet Alliance and lately the Red Fleet. The donors of these valuable organs were all descendants of the spaceborn clans. When they have reached the age of 10, we test their genetic aptitude as any other human in order to determine their genetic aptitudes."

"Ah. I see. Given that you fleeters have always despised or looked down on mechs, I take it that your mech academies aren't exactly popular."

"That is indeed the case." The fleeter nodded in confirmation. "To any other human, being told that you not only have the qualifications to pilot a mech, but possess stellar talent for this vocation is a dream come true. Every year, many newly identified potentates feel as if they have won the lottery and go on to throw themselves into mechs as if they are gods in the making. I find it pitiful that so many young and ignorant children feel the need to throw aside their humanity and turn themselves into inhuman gods, while completely overlooking the abysmally low success rate of advancing to the highest rank."

Ves tried his best not to comment on Dread Captain Argile's obvious inhuman appearance.

After all, not everyone chose to massively boost the capabilities of their cranial implant by installing an external add-on that covered a part of their skull with a metal device!

"So there are fleeters who resist the temptation of starting glorious careers as mech pilots and go on to enter naval academies?"

"Every self-respecting scion of a spaceborn clan will do their utmost to follow the proud traditions of their ancestors." The member of the Argile Spaceborn Clan said with pride. "Piloting mechs is taboo in our world. While we are not categorically opposed to employing mechs when they are useful, many of them are either piloted by our more… deviant members or by those who originate from friendly states, of which there are few. Regardless, there are many potentates within our ranks that have gone on to man the guns or take control of the helm of a naval vessel without ever taking advantage of their mech piloting talent."

What an incredible waste!

Ves was sure that any member of the mech community that discovered what the fleeters were doing with their own potentates would probably go mad with grief!

"Our researchers originally disagreed with your theory, but recent events have caused us to… reconsider our assumptions."

The mood inside the Brain Trust grew heavier.

"What… happened?"

The captain of the Dominion of Man paused for a few seconds before revealing the truth.

"The organic AI cores may appear calm and docile at the moment, but that is not always the case. Ever since Red Cabal has plunged us into the Age of Dawn, many of our systems have experienced progressively stronger changes and mutations. Much to our relief, many of them have turned out to be neutral, negligible or benign. Our Spark Reactor has grown the most after the Great Severing has occurred. Our Brain Trust on the other hand has grown less reliable."

"What's the problem?"

"The organic AI cores… have a tendency to grow sentient."

"Wait, isn't that a good thing? The Dominion of Man will gain a powerful sentient AI that will be able to optimize her systems far better than one that can only simulate human thought patterns."

The powerful captain shook his head. "The reality is different from what you have imagined, professor. Constant exposure to E energy radiation is causing each individual organic AI core to… restore portions of the original personalities of their prior incarnations. That is not to say that our deceased officers are being raised from the dead. Instead, completely new personalities are coming to life that have inherited random traits of our eminent officers. This might not necessarily be a problem, but what is troubling us is that the 'sentient AIs' not only emerge randomly, but cannot work together in any fashion. When multiple of them begin to interact with each other as human-like personalities as opposed to pure processors, they quickly conflict with each other. The greater the quantity of spawned personalities, the more our Brain Trust begins to glitch."

That… sounded incredibly freaky to Ves!

"How come this Brain Trust hasn't already transformed into a madhouse of the living dead?!"

"We regularly reset and mindwipe the corrupted organic AI cores. The Brain Trust is designed so that we can remove a small portion of them without affecting the overall performance of the AI core array, but this is only a stopgap measure. We cannot keep wiping these valuable organic AI cores. Not only will each reset inflict permanent damage to the neurons, but they are becoming better at spawning new rogue personalities. The Brain Trust is rapidly turning into a liability at this rate."

So that was why the fleeters needed help.

Their crazy experiment had screwed them over!