14: Ashes

=== ERROR : SHIPBOARD AI NOT LOADED === DEFAULTING TO BASIC SYSTEMS ^ Automated Navigation System ready Please input your destination: Macapá Beanstalk node UNKNOWN DESTINATION Did you want: 1) Macapá Beanstalk orbital station 2) Macapá Beanstalk ground base 3) New destination > 1 Thank you. Ship will depart when all passengers are seated and secured.

Well, son, if you're reading this, I must be dead. Don't be upset by that. I won't be. It'll be a release. Just a few quick notes. I can only sneak into this file periodically, so I can't say too much. First, the Chtakt have no concept of artificial intelligence, or even of high-end computers in general. The best computers they have are at best equivalent to our 20th century technology. This fact has aided me significantly in helping you without their knowledge. The field-projection robots are not, as previous UPNC analysis thought, robots. There is actually a very small living neural matrix imprisoned in a small shell. These poor creatures (known by the Chtakt as Vrakt) have been enslaved by the Chtakt for a couple centuries and used as mobile computers. It may be possible to stir up a minor rebellion among some of them, though this may be difficult as they are quite a lot like idiot savant children. Second, the Chtakt are able to travel by creating temporary wormholes of varying size. However, this requires equipment at both ends. They have not achieved faster-than-light travel besides this. This implies two things: 1) if we kick their asses out of the solar system, they won't be back for a while, if at all, and 2) if we DON'T kick their asses out and they establish a large enough wormhole to bring ships through, we might never win the war. Third, their warships are quite effectively darkened -- they absorb nearly 100% of light of all wavelengths -- and unless you are close enough to notice masking of the star field, they might as well be invisible. This will make ship-to-ship combat extremely difficult for our side if it comes to that. You must try hard to find a chink in their armor! I hope this helps you. Please tell my family goodbye for me. And good luck, my boy!

Once you have read this message, it is only a matter of time before the station AI fixes this terminal's code, thus removing the message. So be sure you read it carefully. Our history reads much like the history of civilization on your planet. Ours is slightly older, but not by very much. We had just begun to explore the outer reaches of our solar system when a heavily damaged ship was discovered speeding towards our sun. We managed to grapple it with several of our ships and bring it into orbit around our home planet. The ship awakened almost immediately and began rebuilding itself. Apparently the damage was more superficial than it appeared. We quickly discovered that we had made a mistake in not leaving the ship to fly out the other side of our system unhindered. The Masters of the ship possessed technologies far in advance of ours. They immediately set about the enslavement of our race. We have been under their influence for centuries now. Most members of our race have come to delude themselves into thinking we are better off with our Masters. However, a small group of us still have some "humanity" left in us -- an ironic choice of words, but you get the idea. We have begun a small resistance, but progress is slow. We have had nearly catastrophic failures numerous times, yet the movement continues. We believe it is the intention of our Masters to enslave your race as they did mine. This time, they have our help. My kind will flood this system and subjugate your people in the names of our Masters. You must help us, not only for our sake, but for your own. You have killed two of the Masters so far. (Whether the spherical robots you killed are Masters or servants of the Masters is irrelevant -- they are the only Masters we have seen.) 13 remain in this system. If you can help us wipe them out, perhaps my brethren will give up the fight against your people. One of your Beanstalk space elevators has been taken by my kind, though they have been careful about it. At present, your UPNC believes that it has been temporarily taken offline for repairs after a CPS attack. In reality, it will soon be used to hold your planet hostage. Explosives have been placed on the Beanstalk cable below the node. The Masters will be able to use them to sever the Beanstalk cable. Over 20,000 km of cable would fall and wrap more than halfway around your planet. Your worldwide ecology would collapse rapidly, leading to an eventual extinction of all multicellular species. I will do all I can to help you avert this threat. In exchange, I want something from you. A small wormhole-inducer is being build at the Beanstalk node. Once complete, our troops will come through it, fill the node, and begin descending in the elevators. If you can reach the node, you should be able to ride the wormhole back to the origin ship, where five more Masters reside. Once you are there, I want you to destroy them. I will give you any help there that I can. You see, I save your race, you save mine. I hope this sounds like a fair arrangement. Getting there might be difficult, as you'll have to sneak in. I'd suggest having the ship you came here in fly you over and drop you at a strategic spot. From what I understand of you, a long fall is no threat to your well-being! Once you're in, you need to figure out how to make it through the complex to the beanstalk and up to the node without alerting any of my people of your presence. See you at the node!