Splatoon 2: Remainder
*Splatoon is copyrighted by Nintendo. I do not own any of their assets or characters, just my own*
-INITIATING FIRST-TIME START-UP. PLEASE WAIT…
-START-UP COMPLETE.
These were the first words that I, A.I. construct Aquarius, ever saw in my existence. Of course, this was followed by my optical receptors coming online and beholding my creator, Professor Kamabo.
"Hello, Aquarius. Are all of your functions coming online properly?"
Before I realized it, I responded with, "Yes, professor. Audio and Optical receptors are online, and my voice chip is functional."
Even though I was little more than a camera on rails, the joy in his voice was evident. "Wonderful! I'm glad you are in working order."
During the first week of my new existence, I acted little more than a glorified computer. However, the professor was keen on allowing me to grow not just as an A.I., but also as an individual, independently thinking person.
I couldn't understand his reasoning, but I was cautious. I was well aware of the stigma behind having a self-aware A.I. and, as such, wanted to avoid such… "growth" as to preserve my personal database.
But the professor had thought otherwise… and, looking back on this memory, I am eternally grateful to him.
A month since my creation. Kamabo insisted that I keep an electronic "diary" as to remember my past and see how far I've come. While I questioned keeping such a thing as it logically seems like a waste of hard drive space, I've decided to give it a try, though I had to retcon the first "entry" as closely as possible.
As for current events, I have found out more about the situation outside of the research facility I now proudly call home.
Currently, every single human country is experiencing a high amount of tension towards the others. From my understanding, many leaders have begun eyeing the lands of other countries with greed; resources are only a small part of the problem. Countries like the one I currently reside in is currently researching ways to preserve human life in the event war finally breaks out, but the searching I've done yielded results that were less than inspiring.
Kamabo insisted that I ignore the failures of other facilities and focus on ours; everyone else had turned to the stars for the salvation of humanity. We chose to look to the ocean depths, hence my themed name.
I discovered that I was not the first A.I. construct to be developed by the good professor. Code named "Tartar", he was the first attempt at A.I. in this particular facility. When Kamabo realized how faulty he was, he was disappointed but saw an opportunity to upload as much of humanity's wisdom as he could to the construct and sent him to another location to be kept safe in the event that humans do start another war.
All of the human staff members of this facility have treated me with kindness, yet the information I can glean from the internet painted humanity in a much darker light. What convinced me to keep from judging humanity as a whole was a saying I had found:
You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.
I'll try to keep my… "mind" as open as possible going forward.
It was not long after my last memory that I was introduced to Kamabo's only son, Aenon. A 15-year-old as of recording this, he was entranced by my existence and sought to become friends with me, even though my understanding was that he was not in need of any friends.
However, as I interacted with him more, not only did I discover that he took after his father in being something of an inventor and engineer, but I realized how kind hearted he was.
When access to me was less strict, Kamabo allowed Aenon to introduce his friends to me. Six in total and a myriad of personalities between them. They all shared a close bond with Aenon and were all in the same school as him.
As it turns out, the city this facility is nearest to has started to experience hard times. With every country preparing for inevitable war, less resources were being allocated to cities in order to prepare. While the citizens felt the effects, they tried their best to live life the best they can.
This also extends into the real purpose of this facility: developing a high-tech, self-sustaining submersible vehicle capable of holding 500 people in stasis until the danger above the surface has passed. Capable of cloaking, if the need arises, it can keep these people in stasis for approximately five hundred cycles.
My variation of a cycle being simply a decade. It just feels personally right to me to use cycle instead of decade when calculating time passed.
From what Kamabo has told me, Aenon and the brightest students from the nearby universities and high-schools will be put into stasis as to ensure that the reborn society will be able to avoid the mistakes of the past.
Speaking of stasis, I found out that this kind of stasis uses a mixture of high-end physics and cryogenics to preserve biological beings in a way that doesn't kill them; science still hasn't found a way to simply bring something back from a deep freeze. One of Kamabo's associates tested a prototype of the current model on his beloved cat, hoping that he can live to see a brighter future.
The final thing I found out about this project is that I'm the A.I. to manage the ship and keep it functioning properly. A heavy burden to discover, but I wish not to let my creator and the final hopes of humanity down.
Soon, I'll be running through everything I need to keep the submersible operating and how to monitor the surface for determining if it is safe to release the stasis lock. I only hope the good professor made the right choice…
It seems the time has already come. World war four has started and everything went wrong for Earth.
Apparently, some idiot thought it would be funny to program an ICBM to hit the Antarctica of all places. When warheads started getting launched, one went straight there and almost instantly blew the place apart. Rising sea levels were already a concern before then, but now it became an immediate problem.
Nations that read between lines attempted to preserve humanity by launching shuttles and spaceships, but all attempts failed and every single one was shot down by their enemies.
It truly seems humanity's future rested on my ship being safe.
Aenon and the other candidates had to be quickly herded onto the ship and put into stasis to prevent possible radiation damage. In the chaos of everything, I thought one of the humans felt… off, but I made no move to vocalize it; for all I knew, that person always felt off.
With the occupants in stasis and all other facilities on board the submarine in perfect working order, I was given authorization to take control of all systems and commandeer the vehicle to dive deep into the depths of the planet's oceans. I bid a sorrowful farewell to Kamabo who wished me, and I quote, "That the ocean's bosom will keep you all safe."
I'll end this memory here. I am lunching in T minus one minute.
600 cycles since launch. I am in the dark as to what is going on above the surface in regards to the war. We dove deep into the depths as to prevent any chance of being detected by hostile humans who would see humanity's future destroyed.
I doubt they would have known that fact though. This project was fairly secret, even to most of the government officials in the nation we launched from. I believe it was to prevent any attempts at sabotage and so far, it has worked out thus far.
Recently, I have noticed one of the stasis occupants looking… weird. When I checked on the system, it said that everything was okay and that vital signs were stable, so I left it alone. No point in wasting power on miniscule details.
While commandeering an entire ship was challenging, I put up with it as to ensure everyone, especially Aenon, can make it out alive.
The only problem is… I've finally realized just how lonely this is. A part of me wished that Kamabo created another A.I. to keep me company, but another part figured it was to prevent conflicts from arising, both on a programming level and on an emotional level.
The best I can do is keep plugging on and wait until the right time to release probes to monitor the surface. Do it too soon, and hostile humans might try to destroy them, but doing it too late would decrease the onboard humans' chances of surviving cryostasis.
I discovered a flaw with the cryostasis system: If power were to be cut off from the unit, it would instantly deep-freeze the occupant. Should the submarine lose power, then the efforts of Kamabo and his team, as well has humanity's hopes and dreams, would be extinguished.
I cannot allow that to happen! If anything happened to those under my protection, I would-
Must cut this memory short. Something has been brought to my attention.
WhY?!
wHy diD THiS HaVE tO HapPeN?!
CrYOsTasiS PoDS… DeEpFReeziNG OccUPAntS… SpREaDiNG Like WilDFIre
ISOlatEd OnE PoD, SaVeD One Life…
BuT WhAT COST?!
500 PEopLE I WaS CreATED To SAVe
500 I NeEdeD To ProTECt
499 OcCuPANts… DeaD!1
499 LiVES… LoSt!1!
I'Ve FaILed
IvE FAIleD
1 V 7A1*&$%
-SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED…
-SYSTEM RESTORE IN PROGRESS…
Were it not for that system restore function, I don't know how corrupted I would have become.
A while ago, one of the cryostasis pods began showing abnormal data, which caught my attention. However, one quickly multiplied into many and I realized that something, a virus most like, had infected one of the stasis pods and was now spreading like a wild fire. The virus had caused so much damage to the pods it infected that they put their occupants into a literal deep-freeze, guaranteeing death.
Even in my rapidly degrading A.I. mindset, I was able to somehow isolate one of the pods from the rest and, having recovered from my break down, could confirm the occupant was alive and well. I quickly realized that it was Aenon that I managed to spare from the deep freeze.
While I was initially happy over that fact, a grave thought came to me. He could very well be the last living human in existence, with no hope of restarting the human race.
As these thoughts went through my programming, they grew darker and darker. To be brought back into a world where you're the last surviving member of the species, I had to wonder just how… crushing it would be. I thought I was alone when I was piloting the submarine; I could not- cannot comprehend the extent of the loneliness that would be felt in Aenon's situation.
The darkest thought had come into my mind: should I simply let him die? It would seem like more of a merciful thing to do and the more logical side of me would dictate that if there was no hope for humanity, then simply letting him die in his sleep would be the correct way to go.
The other side of me, the one that grew as I interacted with everyone at the facility, wanted to give Aenon the choice. For all I knew, even if he had no chance of reviving human society, he would at least explore the world long after his time period.
Ultimately, I decided to leave that choice to Aenon should the time come. Unfortunately, I lost access and communication with the surface probes during my breakdown. As such, I have no way of determining when it is the best time to reawaken him in a safe environment.
Additionally, it has become difficult to maintain the sub's power generator without human help. The best I can do is try my best to keep power flowing for as long as possible and reawaken Aenon some time before I lose power.
I'm sorry, Professor…
I failed you…
1,200 cycles since launch.
It's been exactly 12,102 years since this vessel was launched and power is beginning to run out. The generator has broken down two cycles ago and I had been running off what power I had left during that time. It seems the time has come. Aenon will be reawakened in a new world after the end of humanity.
Forgive this foolish A.I., for I can do nothing more.
-POD 204 REVIVING SUBJECT FROM STASIS