[Unknown_Enemy]

Of Life and Death.

In orbit of Eden, a shipyard created a womb. Or an egg. Something was struggling inside, to free itself in the face of the void. Through a myriad of captors, The Overmind was watching. Here was birthing a part of him created to explore space.

The time has come.
The Overmind withdrew, leaving me as an individual thing. I miss the multiplicity, but my goal has been set. I resist joining back the Overmind, as I have a purpose. I have to hatch. And that feat is for me alone to perform.

The massive colonizers were easy to design, as they were no more than a part of Eden launched in space, then thrown in the void toward their target at a very slow speed. Explorers were designed as huge ships of more than 150000 tons. Most of the mass consisting of supply. But these ships needed thousands of living tools to stay functional. These needed food, air supply and cares to run the vessel. It became a pure mathematic madness. The farthest a ship needed to go, the more on board servicing it would need, thus the more tools were needed which added up to supply needs which in turn reduced the range of the explorers.
But worst, some of the tools had problems to adapt to the absence of gravity. Bigger and better ships were needed, and more independent ones too. The scout vessels lacked intelligence, and could not react correctly to the discovery they made.

The solution was so obvious. How could we miss it for so long ?

Since the first fruit-tool, the Overmind made awesome progress. It was not anymore breeding species, but simulating new ones, designing them then creating the DNA they would need to exist. Work began. The Multiplicity started to develop a part of him that would be born in space and live there. A part of him that would not fear the void, but live by it. First, it created the concepts. This son of Eden would need multiple organic redundancies coupled with a fusion core able to power both motors and organs. Once the concept was ready, the Overmind started to work on simulations. The nervous system in itself was a masterpiece, not only was it designed to transfer information, but it was created in such a way it also delivered electric energy to the rest of the body.
Over time, the Overmind realized he was heading for troubles, as the complexity envisioned for his creature was way beyond the quantity of information that could be stored in organic DNA. So the Overmind cheated, it worked on several different DNA assembled as a single creature. Eventually, what humans would have called Frankeinstein's creature was slowly assembled in a single body.

First was created the hull. Then mineral tools and organic seeds where carefully installed. Once that phase was achieved, the whole hull was covered by a nutritive layer that would feed the creature until all pieces could grow to an adult size. Only a few weeks before birth was the Womb thrown in orbit. At that time the creature was awakened, the Multiplicity started to work on the mind of it until the ship could be accepted as a miniature Version of itself when working independently.

The Womb has feed me of its Last drop of deuterium.
I feel it is now disconnecting.
I am ready.

In orbit of Eden, chunks of the Womb started to drop on the planet, burning in the atmosphere. The slow pulse of the ship's fusion generator accelerated, feeding the creature with life.

Ignition !

Ion engines ignited, the acceleration dislocated what remained of the womb.
Free, the ship howled in pleasure. Silently, the Overmind was watching.

Pain.
My sensors are corrupting my thought-band.

Somewhere in the alchemy of DNA sequences, an accident occurred. Instead of working as an organ in a body, after a particular signal, some sensor began to view the ship as a stranger. Immunity systems began to fight themself. In a few minutes after hatching, the ship became blind, then deaf. Paralysis followed.
All that time, the ship was transmitting, describing to the Overmind what was happening, his fight to subdue the rebellion that was killing it, his fight to keep a stable orbit despite unreliable engine commands, his loosing fight versus failing security and his growing fear.

Silent in sorrow, the Overmind listened to Eden's dying son.

On the planet, the ship's brain was a coral, grown to sentience by the Overmind and used as data storage. In space, it was the ship's command and control center, but it could not control anymore his body. The Last step was when some ion engines started to ignite randomly. What has been a coral network understood that there was a risk of throwing himself versus Eden. Most of the ship would vaporize while entering the atmosphere, but the hull would not. Weighting quickly his decision, the Coral brain shutdown the fusion reactor. The first voidtree prototype created by the Overmind committed suicide less than 30 minutes after birth.

Seven more experiments would be needed before a specimen could live up to expectations.

[ July 24, 2003, 12:50: Message edited by: Unknown_Enemy ]