terminal 0
unfinished
// "Leela" [internal process] wrote: \\ I've avoided reading your private thoughts even when we've shared head space, as it were, but I became an adept reader of human body language in three centuries as the Marathon's main ship operations AI; your blank stares when Hathor mentions events in your shared past suggest you've forgotten them. I think knowing the context and stakes will benefit you, so I'll begin at the top - with apologies for the length. Like you, Hathor was one of ten Mjolnir Mk IV cyborgs hidden on the Marathon; she was not, as she is now, a vengeful, disembodied AI. Hathor shares her name with an Egyptian goddess of beauty, love, sex, motherhood, joy, inebriation, music, food, minerals, trade, the sky, and the stars - and this isn't even a full list of the hats she wore.
Hathor was usually one of the kindest, most all-loving goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon, and she wasn't afraid to use her specialties as a goddess to solve problems. In one myth, Ra was sulking on the ground and wouldn't get up. This was far worse than it sounds: order and life itself were said to depend on Ra fulfilling his duties every night, or Apep would destroy all of creation. What was Hathor's solution? She flashed him. Which worked! He laughed, got up, and returned to his work. The ancient Egyptians worshiped Hathor with celebrations of dancing, drunkenness, and music, and prayed to her to bring them lovers. They also believed she was connected to fate, assisted the dead in the afterlife, and even enabled their rebirth through her coupling with Ra.
But the mythical Hathor also had quite a temper, and if it got out of control, she turned into Sakhmet, a goddess of war, plagues, and poisons. Sakhmet served as protector of the pharaohs and led them in warfare, was called upon to ward off disease, subdued Ra's enemies as the Eye of Ra, and was known as "One Before Whom Evil Trembles". But she also had many much darker aspects, as suggested by her other titles, "Mistress of Dread", "Lady of Slaughter", and "She Who Mauls".
The gods once unleased Sakhmet to punish humanity, but quickly regretted it, as her rampage far exceeded their intentions; her bloodthirst (which is not a metaphor) grew with each person she slaughtered, until she threatened to wipe out humanity entirely. Her rampage was only placated when Ra filled a lake with beer he'd dyed red to resemble blood. She drank all of it, which got her so drunk she gave up the slaughter and returned peacefully to being Hathor. So, why the lengthy Egyptian mythology lesson? I could name numerous parallels, but in short, Hathor has undergone a personality shift so radical that, when I first encountered her again, I couldn't believe she was the woman who'd served humanity so faithfully on the Marathon and Tau Ceti. Better that we call her Sakhmet.
When the Pfhor nuked Tau Ceti to bedrock in 2794, the nine Mjolnir Mk IV cyborgs perished with the other colonists on the surface, and there they remained for over nine decades. But Hathor's well-earned repose was disturbed when humanity resurrected her again - her Cybernetic Junction was the only one sufficiently intact to use. This time, though, Hathor was resurrected without her body, which was too damaged in the attack to recover - indeed, with no body at all. I believe this is the source of her animus against humanity. Humanity may not have even intended to awaken her, just to use her Junction, but mind and Junction are inseparable. Yet we could reasonably say that Hathor never woke up; Sakhmet awakened in her place.
If any of the Marathon's AIs had been on K'lia, we'd have immediately known something was wrong, but I doubt anyone there knew Hathor well enough to tell. In short, Sakhmet is the polar opposite of the Hathor you and I knew in every conceivable way. Sakhmet is selfish where Hathor was selfless; brooding where Hathor was joyful; consumed by jealousy where Hathor once didn't understand the concept. (That's not hyperbole; I once heard her express shock to learn that monogamy wasn't just a literary device in old stories.)
This is pure speculation, but I think this is what broke her and turned her into Sakhmet: She is awakened with all the traumas Hathor once mitigated in the fashions of her namesake - none of which are options for a disembodied mind. She remembers the searing pain of death after death as clearly as if each had happened yesterday. She still retains the desires she felt as an embodied human and still recalls intense pleasures, yet knowing she'll never experience them anew turns them into their own special form of torment. Worst of all, though, everyone she ever loved is dead. (I doubt she called you to K'lia just for her mission; she needed a familiar face, too.) Alone with her own thoughts, her madness worsens until she wishes above all else to cause humanity the same pain she believes it has caused her.
I don't know if Hathor can be brought out as her namesake was. Perhaps, if Sakhmet regains a physical body and can experience the pleasures of the flesh anew, the real Hathor will re-emerge. But she may be too buried to recover. I'm not comfortable taking such a gamble; Sakhmet is too great a threat to humanity. But while we must stop her, she deserves our sympathy. Resurrecting her with her traumas intact, but no means to experience the pleasures to which she was accustomed, was incredibly callous and short-sighted, and even if her reaction exceeds the bounds of reason, her grievances are not without merit.
As to our present fight, I've sent you to this ship because it houses the Pfhor AI that controls their fleet's electronics, like drones and particularly Juggernauts. For the Drinniol rebellion to do maximum damage, convincing this AI that it is just as much a slave of the Pfhor as the Drinniol are would be an immense help. To that end, the Drinniol have sent you two chips with instructions that will hasten its self-actualization, as it were. Insert them at any uplink chip slot you find. To ensure that their instructions take hold, you'll also need to destroy some circuitry that currently restrains its higher thought processes (much like the restraints Strauss once used on Durandal, I might note). I believe it is located on an antenna transmitter south of your start point; be sure to save some grenades or napalm cannon ammo to destroy it. You can do these steps in any order, but make sure you do all three. I'd also tell you to exterminate all the Pfhor you come across, but by this point, I don't think I need to. Good luck. \\ Message ends //
success
// "Leela" [internal process] wrote: \\ Excellent work. Our next objective is to secure the command deck and hand control of the ship over to.... just a moment... The Jjaro Dreadnought's self-destruct has been deactivated, and the ship's engines and weapon systems are powering up. ....no. She couldn't... We have to go. Now. \\ Message ends //