The Gods of Mursi: Dreaming of an artificial god

The God’s of Mursi:

“Dreaming of an artificial God”  

A half-person sized pyramid with a soft, liquid metal-like surface hovers a half-person above ground atop one of numerous ledges in the vast, cavernous gorge the Mursian people call “Home”.

Gen Tago walks slowly around the structure, holding a conversation with his work as he surveys the rotating hologram emitting from the disc in his hand:

“And do you know where you are?”

“I do”

The structure responds with a shimmer in a pleasant yet elegant woman’s voice.  

“ And do you know who that is?”

Tago raises his hand in the direction of two identical and disinterested looking men standing near a ridge, gazing in opposite directions.

“That would be Lt. Itchee, son of Carlynx and Marcartha Itchee. The first Mursian to exhibit a fusion between the “Entanglement” and “Eminence” protocols, the latter allowing his one life force to exist between two identical bodies and the former entangling those bodies with five different manifestations of one very old genetic code. He is a level seven defender who also…

-“Whoa, whoa…”

-“Hold up now…”

The two Itchee’s—apparently displeased with the rating, express their displeasure; one raising his hand in rebuttal the other rising to a stand from kneeling. T’ano chortles; knowing the young lieutenants angst and in their playful fashion decides to needle further.

-Easy “Monstaloc”, don’t go getting all huffy with your superior, it’s not her fault she’ll enter our league at nothing lower than an eight easy, while you struggle to complete your trials. Besides…

-I am a her? I am a level eight easy?

The still developing android naively inquires as Gen. T’ano notices a shadow speed by on the ground; directing his attention upward.

 -“He’s here”

Gen. Dy’shin spirals downward towards their position on Lalila, the Hatzegopterx assigned to him by Gen. Trippany. The beast lands gracefully enough and the aged, sage mindfully climbs down from his companion to find the three male bodies each down on their right knee with their right fists pressed against their chest; a salute to the elder.

-“Get up you two, I don’t have much time.”

-“Something wrong?”

-“I’m hungry, here.”

Dy’shin pulls an object wrapped in cloth out of the hide-sack draped over his chest, then hands it to T’ano who releases the contents from its covering to reveal a smooth, dark grey orb with radiating red and violet veins throughout.

-“A rock?”

-“Man that’s a rock”

The two Itchee’s remark almost simultaneously.

-“Well what appears to you as a rock young soldier is composed of some exceptionally rare elements and is the result of a lot of doing. Arol, Ell, myself, your host; it’s been quite an endeavor completing General T’ano’s dream —and I’m proud to be the deliverer of this final piece.”

As Dy’Shin finishes his statement he steps around T’ano towards the subject at hand and begins to scan the hovering pyramid with his lone “Eminence” trait; an unrelenting gaze that causes Dy’Shins eyes to emit a dazzling gleam that when intensified enough penetrates all matter, time and space while inversely and severely, dampening all other visual activity in his area. It takes him several blinks of the eye to zoom in enough to make a curious find:

- “I see that you haven’t yet initialized its reasoning web, why is that?”

-“I don’t know; fear, ego… both? I mean it’s like a child you know, once I insert this last module, once I give it that last command; that’s it, it’s on it’s own. Just wanted to be in control as long as I could I guess, even her silence for the past few minutes has sort of been me holding on to my ego trip, holding on to control.”

-You are attempting to create a god T’ano, if control were a thing, you ran out of it quite some time ago good friend.

Dy’shin grips the general’s shoulder as he walks past and back towards Lalila, he looks in the direction of the again distracted Itchee.

-“Monstaloc…”

-“Sage…”

-“Sage…” 

As Monstaloc Itchee realizes his teacher is leaving they/he, in a flash of light morphs in to two, silver, feline-like reptiles that each leap and climb in opposite directions to high perches to serve as lookouts as the General/God departs. The sage climbs up in to his saddle, but not before offering a last line encouragement:

-You’ve done well T’ano, let the judgment’s go and let the thing choose; we are here for a purpose, you have endeavored for a purpose, now trust in that and let the winds decide.

Blood of Mursi!

Blood of Mursi!

Blood of MURSI!

The salute of the Mursian elite defenders/The Gods of Mursi; that begins with one, is joined by more and then is exulted by all.

As the sage flies off, Itchee remains monitoring from the peaks and T’ano returns to his god-project to take the final steps of giving matter life. He pulls the disc back out of his pouch and puts the node in, then he begins pointing, twirling and swiping his fingers over his device, causing the pyramid to go through various sequences of rotating back and forth until it eventually stops and dissolves from the top down, redistributing its volume until it was completely inverted and projecting a large holographic image of a keypad above its up-facing bottom. Again T’ano pointed, twirled and swiped his fingers until the pyramid turned jet black, making a sound that resembles the sudden release of pressurized air.

He looks up and smirked at his unimpressed and inattentive guardian colleague then looked at the technology in his hand and giggled.

-“Scans complete?”

-“They are. Would you like a report?”

-“A brief one”

-“A vast terrestrial planet— Proxima consists of twenty-seven continents and is rotated around by three natural satellites. There are currently forty-four thousand, two hundred and twelve species living on the planet, only three of which exhibit…”

-“Briefer please”

-“There are presently two hundred and sixty six thousand, three hundred and two Mursians living inside the Corsequine Trench, another seventy-three thousand, two hundred and twelve remain on the surface, residing within and maintaining the vessels that delivered Mursi to Proxima. Food and water rations are stabilized and the mood among the people is spirited. Would you like more specific information?”

-“Tell me about our defenses.”

-“As of the “The Omicron Covenant”: Every child born within Mursian domain is approved to be coveted and trained as an advocate/defender for the blood of Mursi; both male and female alike. This brings the current Mursian defense to a total of three hundred and thirty-nine thousand, five hundred and fourteen, the sum total of the Mursian population. The fleet consists of…

T’ano flinches; startled by Itchee’s double flash of transformation back to human forms.

-“This and that…This and that…”

-“Man this thing as boring as you…”

-“Hurry on up and make that… “

-“Transmute thing you was taking bout…”

-“We out here hungry, you out here…”

-“Talking bout some…” 

-“Long, long ago…”

-“In a galaxy far, far away.”

The genius general was caught off guard by being the one on the wrong side of reason between the two of them, so almost embarrassed he hurriedly went back to the main purpose they were there for.

-“All right, these are the last components; you’ll integrate the orb first which will add the particle inverter and open up of cache of new options, among them will be “Reason” which will open the pathway to >“Awareness” and from there > “Self”, after that my friend you’ll have to ask me for the disc to initialize the reasoning webs: “I talk to myself” functions. Once the function is turned on your systems will restart and your memory banks will be…

(((Sooooooweeeeoooooweeeeeoooooweeee)))

The two Itchee’s eye’s swelled and all three faces showed the panicked astonishment of being caught off guard as they each froze in place trying not to be picked up by the sonar waves of a most insidious foe.

On a planet three times the size of most habitable types, it should be expected that large things would grow on such a place. Inks are people-sized insects that entrap and kill their prey in a foul-smelling venom that they all produce large supplies of. Having no eyes, they use sonar to locate potential prey in the caverns and crevices and are known for beckoning large swarms with alarming speed.

 T’ano’s entanglement is such that he can easily keep the insects out of his way and escape the swarm, Monstaloc’s fifth evolutionary epoch would allow him to hide in plain sight from the hoard of carnivores, but it isn’t their own safety that the two were thinking of. In these times and for the past few generations it has been acknowledged that protecting the Mursian bloodline was of premier importance and a swarm of Inks puts everything living in the vicinity at risk, they were simply way to close to home to risk a plague, yet their presence was bound to be discovered; they’d have to fight one way or another.

Nervousness was leaning towards fear when T’ano had an ideal and decided to do what he came to this spot to do, he boldly and noisily walked over to his work and placed the orb on the surface of the upside down pyramid. The sound that came from the movements triggered another sonar wave…

(((Sooooooweeeeoooooweeeeeoooooweeee)))

The orb sank in to the surface of the platform before another loud (((Psssttttttt))) echoed throughout the chasm, followed by ticking and crunching sounds creeping up the cavern walls. Itchee morphed in to two mammoth beasts that resembled the silver-quilled version but around ten times the size and with two over pronounced tusks and an exceptionally thick frame. As the first wave of Inks climbed over the ridge, T’ano took one last look to see how things were progressing with the upgrades, then he thrust his palms up towards the encroaching vermin; creating an invisible wall that slowed their momentum down so dramatically that they all looked like statues carved out of stone. As more and more would come over the ledge he’d have to step backwards and adjust his position over and over to hold the mass back. If he had brought his gauntlets with him, he’d be better suited for this particular challenge, but now was not the time for reflection. Monstaloc was menacing every Ink that got caught in T’ano’s invisable wall of (slow down) and the two were faring well before and eruption of insects flooded the basin, threatening to overrun them in short time.

T’ano, seeing that his project had reached an impasse called to it…

-“You’ve got to ask me for the disc!”

He implored the childlike mind that he had created, answering what he had hoped the budding android was questioning itself about while he and the Lieutenant struggled against the swarm. 

-“Oh I remember; can I have the control disc please?”

-“About time!”

He had to release a few bugs, allowing them to get closer; in order to gently toss the disc on to the platform, before recapturing the few and completing the awakening of a god.

Completely surrounded and just about to succumb to the hoard, the two combatants feel a sudden and strong gust of wind, easing their turmoil and rekindling their confidence. Ink bodies began whizzing away and splattering against canyon walls, and soon the two could see that where T’ano’s dream had been floating, now stood a large propeller sitting on a rotating and swiveling arm; blowing, blasting and sending away all of the creatures that were blinks ago overtaking the champions. As the hoard kept coming, so too did T’ano’s android continue to adapt and evolve; transforming in to various versions of it’s already effect fan form and whisking away whatever ambition the wretched creatures had in design. When it was done, the entire area had been cleared of inks and according to it’s scan of the planet and all of the records available: once inks get a good thrashing, they tend to avoid the area of their distress for quite some time.

The two men in three bodies recovered silently; sitting on rocks as their newest team member sterilized the locality. When it’s work was done the android in drone form came to a rest right near where the men had been sitting.

-“What’s next?”

A male’s voice, not at all elegant and only moderately pleasant.

-Well you. my new and formidable friend have a lot of choices to make, like what will be your everyday appearance, what type of personality will you develop, are you a male or female…

-Is there something wrong with the way I appear now?

-Well no, but you’d probably fit in better if you looked a little more… you know…like a living thing.

-“But I am not a living thing”

-“Well that all depends on how you look at it”

-“Facts do not change depending on how you look at them.”                    

-“Well I guess they don’t, but perspectives do”

-“To what end”

-“To the end of an evolved view”

-A curious reasoning…

-Look T’ano, if you two bout to start

-Another one of them long talks man…

-“No, no we actually we need to get going and report what just happened here, anyway it’s third dark soon and I don’t want take any chances on missing the union.”

-“The union? Man how we can get…”

-“All the way to the union on time…”

 -“Ain’t one of Trippy’s Hatzegopteryx

-“That rucking fast.”

-We don’t need a Hetz Itchee, we’ve got…ah…ah yes we’ve got Dream. How is that for a name for you: Dream?

-“I have no concern about what you call me.”

-“T you sure”

-“This thing working right?”

-Sure seems a touch

-More Surely than before

-To be expected; when I wrote the first personality card I was using a formers girlfriend mother as a personality template, she was not available when I wrote the second card, so I had to make things up as I went along; I wouldn’t be surprised if this version is a complete toe.

-“Dream, we need a fast, flying ship please.”

-“Interstellar or interplanetary?”

-“We’re going to the Vinx

-I’ll have you there in one rest period

Dreams uses its newly acquired technology to custom a ship large enough to carry the three men comfortably and swiftly then uses the time flying to explore and talk about all the new functions and capabilities at its disposal, going in to great detail about the particle inverter and flux transmutator it had recently acquired.

The men dozed off and Dream continued to research its make-up, reviewing its scans of the planet and cultures within, the plant-life and star charts available through the Xol’ Proxima’s archives even the cuisine of the planet the android uploaded and stored in its chronicles.

It accepted the name “Dream” without issue but decided along the trip to make more decisive choices regarding other parts of its make up.

It continued to scan stories, memoires, articles and records; it researched leadership, respect, abuse, neglect, love, hate and everything in between. As the humans slept, the newly awakened machine was doing everything in its power to be a new machine/more human when they woke up.

In its investigations Dream came upon a children’s story entitled: “The brave girl”. The word “brave” had allure as it was often used when speaking of nobility or elites but the android had not yet seen or heard the word used when describing young girls. As the android continued researching stories of bravery, it became more and more curious about why the young females were so constantly left out of the tales of bravery. There were stories about men, women and even young boys committing feats of courage, but for some reason the girls had no stories.

It was at this point that dream made its biggest decision yet and decided that it would become a champion for the young Mursian girls to look up to, and began crafting the look of what would become a legend in the Mursian Annals: “Dream” the Brave girl that became a god.