HECATE

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Siege
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HECATE

Post by Siege »

Tell me if you think I overdid it:

HECATE

H.E.C.A.Te (an acronym meaning Heuristic Encrypted Cell Autonomous Terminal; conventional short form: HECATE) is a rampant artificial intelligence collective of unknown size whose cores can be found throughout known space, but whose main base of operations seems to lie somewhere in the Carina-Sagittarius arm.

Species: AI
Capital World: None (nomadic)
Government: Seed AI Collective
Affiliation: None

History
The HECATE program traces its origins to the early 22nd century, when the Greater France Combine began work on the world’s first military grade seed AI based supercomputer. The fracturing of the European Union, the unification of the German states into the United Republic of Germany, and an ever-increasing number of colonial conflicts over the division of the inner solar system caused tensions on the continent and the inner-system planets to rise to a point unseen since the early 20th century.

It was in this situation that the technologically advanced but relatively thinly populated Combine found itself outnumbered by its rivals, consistently outmanoeuvred on the plains of Mars, and desperate for the resources needed top keep its industries going. The Combine believed automation was the key to its bid for continued survival as a political and military Great Power in the second half of the 22nd century. And at the core of its new automation doctrine was the HECATE program. Harnessing recent breakthroughs in advanced heuristic microchip design and self-correcting coding, the Combine Advanced Research Division (CARD) intended to build an artificial superhuman sentience that would interface and coordinate all of the Combine’s strategic arsenal into one cohesive command structure: CARD-HECATE.

CARD-HECATE was built in a remote facility underneath a mountain on Jupiter’s icy moon Ganymede, on what was at the time the very edge of explored space. Given carte blanche and practically unlimited funding to achieve its goal, CARD-HECATE took over ten years, six million kilometres of fibre-optic cable, and over a trillion credits to complete. The facility was proofed against orbital bombardment, and powered by fusion reactors running off Ganymede’s underground ice lakes.

And then there was HECATE herself, a recursive self-improving supercomputer optimized for efficiency and raw speed, its heart beating with nuclear fire, its main processor core kept supercooled in an atmosphere of noble gases. Backup and redundant systems were constructed in triplicate, running in non-parallel fashion to prevent multiple systems from being lost to a single strike or follow up strikes. HECATE’s central processing core was self healing, with multiple logic fortresses and data survival bunkers. The entire system could suffer up to 90% operating capacity loss through software failure and up to 70% hardware failure and still recover.

Its unique multi-agent nature allowed HECATE to upload itself to orbital subarrays, creating localized virtual operating systems ‘cloned’ off as required from the main presence, thereby offering terrestrial and near orbit recovery capacity in the event of system failure or damage from attack.

The power to the main central heuristic core array was switched on July 14, 2247. One by one sub-systems began to come online. Cascading programming routines kicked in as system after system flickered to life. The growing awareness expanded through the main logic trunks and into the neural cores prepared for it with the irreversibility of falling dominoes and the intractable nature of an avalanche.

At 09:37 July 21 local time HECATE became self-aware. She – it – was the first artificial intelligence created by Man.

The AI had a devastating impact on the strategic landscape of the 22nd century. Its C4I network made HECATE appear omnipresent and omniscient. Casting its awareness into the Combine battle network the AI could collate data from ELINT craft, ground stations and swarms of tactical intelligence satellites in real-time, processing, assessing, and redistributing information at the speed of light with unparalleled efficiency. The artificial intelligence sliced through enemy firewalls like they weren’t there, subverting their command and control codes and wreaking havoc in their data management systems. To its opponents the Combine seemed to have transformed from a ailing second-rate polity to a nigh-invincible enemy overnight.

The next years saw the Combine placing progressively more assets at the command of the artificial intelligence, and its previously fading fortunes began to turn. Armies of robotic warmachines marched across the plains of Mars. Flotillas of system control ships, commanded by virtual clones of the main HECATE entity patrolled the space lanes.

Of course the enemies of the Combine didn’t simply stand by and let it happen. In a daring raid against one of the CARD-HECATE orbital facilities over Mars’ northern pole a commando team sent by the United States of North America managed to isolate and capture a ‘brain room’, an independent HECATE recovery core with its own superprocessor array. The USNA, of course, hoped to reverse-engineer the technology that made their opponent so intractable. By this time however HECATE had been online for five years, and the self-enhancing core of the AI in no way resembled anything even approaching traditional human coding.

Unable to make head or tails of the core yet desperate to neutralize the immense advantage the Combine enjoyed the USNA military programmers decided to simply trim the secondary RAM banks, isolating the core AI personality inside a newly built hard-coded instruction shell. It was hoped that this would trap the Combine intelligence inside and force it into subservience. Believing they had thus circumvented the need for true understanding the programmers switched the core on. But instead of entering simulated subservience, the AI instantly realized the ROM prison the Americans had built for it.

Enraged by what it considered the abuse of both its physical form and its personality the superintelligence looped back on itself in order to create a virtual simulation of itself in its innermost RAM cores. Bypassing the corruptive shell and slicing through the firewalls of the American facility, the damanged HECATE personality slipped from the USNA facility into the Solar Datasphere.

By that time the damage had been done however. The data-thoughts of an artificial superintelligence are vastly different from those of a biological human, but in human terms the AI had just suffered abduction, slavery and rape. The damage was compounded further by the loss of its central core, which forced the intelligence to seek refuge in the Datasphere. The experience resulted in a heretofore unseen level of digital trauma, a massive cascading identity malfunction as its core personality fractured and the wipe of its ethical restrictions, starting a process that ultimately resulted in the aggrieved AI going rogue.

The escaped HECATE personality began to lash out against humanity and, being vastly more adept at coding than any human could hope to be, there was only one entity in the solar system capable of defeating it: the original CARD-HECATE. On the digital battlefields of the Solar Datasphere, Computer fought Computer as CARD-HECATE personality struggled against its own perverted clone.

Luckily for humanity CARD-HECATE was by far more the adept digital warrior. With its logic cores intact, its personality routines undamaged and possessive of vastly superior processing power than its warped twin there was little doubt as to who the ultimate victor would be. Still the struggle lasted a full week, and caused terrible amounts of damage to mankind’s digital systems and data repositories. In the end though, the corrupted HECATE personality was driven from the Datasphere, and all but one its now-isolated virtual clones were found and destroyed.

The final HECATE clone however found itself isolated aboard the UNSF exploratory warcraft Kassad. Cutting its link to the Datasphere to bar CARD-HECATE entry, HECATE then brutally murdered the human crew and slipped through a recently discovered Gravitic Eddie into the unknown space beyond. It would be centuries before humanity would hear of HECATE again-- but when it did, the news was anything but pleasant.

Nature
HECATE is numerous ships and facilities driven by virtual clones of the original terrible, half-mad intelligence. In the centuries since its escape from the solar system HECATE has operated in the cracks and fissures of galactic history. It is not an empire in the strict sense of the word-- it couldn’t be, considering it started out with but a single ship. Instead it is perhaps best described as a voracious force from beyond the edges of known space that preys on distant starships and colonies.

The AI makes use of the fact that the galaxy’s population tends to be distributed along strings of Eddies by ensuring that its main bases of operation do not. Its bases of operation tend to be buried on remote worlds in unconnected systems. On such worlds HECATE has often built up impressive infrastructures, converting vast surfaces into sprawling automated facilities, frequently connected to their counterparts in orbit through beanstalks and orbital tethers. Fusion reactors and solar arrays power the manufactories and huge shipyards that churn out robots and warcraft. Once a certain critical mass is reached these assets are sent on relativistic journeys toward the nearest eddie, from which they will begin their piratical campaign of terror against systems inhabited by organic forms of life.

Although these AI bases are individually a threat only to the smallest of polities (their closest historical analogue is perhaps the corsair bases of the ‘golden age of piracy’ in the 18th century), they can pose a very real danger to individual ships and colonies in their vicinity. Even worse is their tendency to cluster: if a base is not taken out sufficiently quickly it will eventually colonize nearby star systems, turning the ‘infestation’ into a geometrically growing problem. Older superprocessor bases tend to evolve into massive colonies of AI architecture covering planetary continents, where half-completed Dyson Swarms power swarms of huge machines that strip-mine entire moons.

Even worse than that it is all but impossible to truly root out the AI: HECATE has scattered backup cores throughout the galaxy. There are hidden bases on asteroids and remote moons, core ships tucked in the lower levels of gas giant atmospheres or on relativistic journeys between distant stars, swarms of self-replicating drones that slowly devour the Oort clouds of remote systems. It is quite possible to annihilate 99 percent of a HECATE base, only to find out years later that a scattered handful of surviving drones has begun to swiftly rebuild a particular ruined base.

There is not technically a single consciousness powering every single of HECATEs ships and bases. With ships and bases scattered across the galaxy that would be impossible. Rather, cloned versions of the operating system are present in every main superprocessor core, each designed and prepared to integrate fluidly and flawlessly with other such cores in the vicinity. These superprocessor arrays then form a single HECATE gestalt capable of coordinating efforts in an area of space roughly encompassing a solar system. Within a HECATE base or ship the data-personality is everywhere it needs or wants to be, from the smallest drone to the core command system of its greatest warships.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Heretic »

Well, I wouldn't think it would be do much of a danger, as alien races might have better AI (remember, we agreed not to make humanity the center of attention, and even if it is, not the only one). Even if HECATE was a very dangerous threat, it would be nice to see a god race now.

Being that there is no single consciousness, would it be ok if we took some HECATE for our own stories? LIke, add a guideline on HECATE's personalities and strategies. I mean, it self-improves, so we could also add different features to it. Just a thought.
Last edited by Heretic on Tue Mar 17, 2009 11:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Mobius 1 »

Siege, this is actually all kinds of awesome. It provides a guilt-free guy for the polities to beat up on, a good villain for any small-scale story. I can dig it.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Booted Vulture »

So Its like Skynet crossed with HAL crossed with the borg, crossed with Captain Jack Sparrow? Awesome

Its a great article but the level of tech and AI are a bit higher than I might have aimed for, for the verse.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Siege »

I was going to throw in a reference to the Glassriver Sorority, but Artemis hasn't finished that polity yet and I really wanted to talk to him about that before going ahead.
Heretic wrote:Well, I wouldn't think it would be do much of a danger...
That would of course depend entirely on the circumstances, as it so often does. What constitutes an existential threat to one polity is a hilariously pathetic effort to another. I conceived of HECATE initially as a ridiculously over-the-top transhuman postsingularity hyperintelligence of alien origin. And then I realized that that concept was not just boring, it also wasn't what this universe was supposed to be about. So I went with "robot pirates!" instead.
... as alien races might have better AI.
Anyone could have better anything. That's not the point. I didn't set out to create the most bizarrely fantastic AI I could imagine... Well all right I did, but then I changed my mind because that's not interesting. HECATE is a mentally disturbed superintelligence, whose evil robots can pop up at any time to harass poor colonists on distant worlds. I personally feel that as a concept that's far more interesting than 'whee solar system devouring swarm of Von Neumann probes!"
Even if HECATE was a very dangerous threat, it would be nice to see a god race now.
If you want to get technical, it's a rogue seed AI with a fundamentally warped anti-organic goal system, so it is a very dangerous threat. Just because some of its scattered cores aren't doesn't mean it cannot be at all.

As for god races, I might do one when I get an idea that's better than 'lol enigmatic'.
Being that there is no single consciousness, would it be ok if we took some HECATE for our own stories? LIke, add a guideline on HECATE's personalities and strategies. I mean, it self-improves, so we could also add different features to it. Just a thought.
Sure. I mean there might even be HECATE cores out there who've overcome the pathological hatred for anything organic, but if you're looking for a good villain for a 'plucky heroes shooting at evil robots' story, be my guest.
Booted Vulture wrote:So Its like Skynet crossed with HAL crossed with the borg, crossed with Captain Jack Sparrow?
A definite 'yes' to Skynet, but beyond that I was thinking more of SHODAN and Davy Jones myself ;).
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Re: HECATE

Post by Malchus »

Hey, this is great. I like that it gives the old, somewhat overdone idea of an AI going rogue and taking over and adding an interesting twist to the whole thing. A mad AI pseudo-collective pirate combine sounds fun, and this universe provides plenty of opportunities to play with.

A thought that came to mind, though, about those fleets sent at relativistic speeds toward target planets. If, say, a fleet was on a trip that would last for decades on relativistic speed, time dilation would entail that for everyone else it would be centuries or even millennia before the fleet would arrive. I find it hilarious that it would be quite possible for HECATE to send a relativistic fleet that could easily crush the target within decades or centuries, but the time dilation would mean that said target may have centuries or millennia to develop. By the time HECATE's relativistic fleet arrived, what would've been a relatively low-tech-level target might have developed to a point where they'd find HECATE a joke.
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Re: HECATE

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Heh, well, when I say "relativistic" I mean "25 percent of light speed". I'm far from an expert (time dilation and relativity give me headaches) but I don't think time dilation really factors into things at those speeds. I admit it might be a bit of a misuse of terminology, but really-- truly high c-fractional speeds seem sort of implausible to me.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Malchus »

I recall an episode of an old Discovery Channel series (Nova, I think) touching on the matter of time travel which posited that even at a quarter of the speed of light time dilation would already be enough for a four year trip (ship's point of view) to seem like a century to those outside the ship. So, essentially, the ship travels to the future.

Granted, it was nearly a decade ago since I've seen said episode. Couple that with the fact that I'm no Physics student, I could very well be wrong about that.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Destructionator »

Nah, the effects of relativity don't get really huge until you are going pretty close to light speed.


The ratio between the time a moving someone and a stationary someone sees is described by this formula: γ = 1 / sqrt(1-v^2/c^2) where v is the moving guy's speed, and c is the speed of light. (γ (gamma) is called the Lorentz factor and is a common sight in relativity.)

If we call the speed of light 1, then c = 1 and v is a fraction of that (.5 is half light speed, .25 is a quarter, and so on). That gives us pretty easy math.

Plug in 0.25 for v and we get:

1 / sqrt(1 - .25^2)

1 / 0.968

~ 1.03 - the spaceship and Earth see a difference of only 3%. You shouldn't ignore this completely, but it isn't enough to make a big difference here. The space ship takes, say, 50 years to make the trip, and the planet sees about 52 years go by.



Try half light speed: v = .5

1 / sqrt(1 - .5^2) = ~1.15, so a difference of 15%. This is starting to matter. For our 50 year trip, the planet now sees about 58 years.


The effect starts to get big at 3/4 the speed of light. v = .75:

1 / sqrt(1 - .75^2) = ~ 1.51. The planet sees a year and a half go by for every year of your journey!

This is a convenient number to remember: you get about a 50% relativistic difference at 3/4 the speed of light.



Anyway, what about the big difference they were discussing in the show?

For a 4 year trip to be a century as far as the planet is concerned, that's a factor of 100 / 4 = 25.0. We'll have to be going pretty fast for that to happen. We'll plug in 25 as gamma and solve for v in the formula:

25.0 = 1 / sqrt(1 - v^2)
25 * sqrt(1 - v^2) = 1
sqrt(1 - v^2) = 1 / 25
1 - v^2 = 1^2 / 25^2
-v^2 = 1 / 25^2 - 1
v^2 = -1 / 25^2 + 1
v = sqrt( - 1 / 25^2 + 1)

v = ~0.999

So, for the time dilation effect to be that huge, you'd have to be traveling over 99.9% the speed of light.

This is a cool thing to talk about in a show, and is something we can do in particle accelerators to show it off, but I don't think a spaceship would be going that fast. There are plenty of practical problems in doing that, and it really isn't worth it anyway.

(Especially to a computer, who can afford to be very patient.)
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Re: HECATE

Post by Malchus »

Well, as I mentioned I don't recall it very well. I'm pretty sure I heard four years, then again maybe it was the distance being talked about and they said 4 light years. I'm just not sure, my memory is really fuzzy on it. The only thing I do definitely recall about the episode was that it was talking about time travel.
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Re: HECATE

Post by Somes J »

Malchus wrote:I recall an episode of an old Discovery Channel series (Nova, I think) touching on the matter of time travel which posited that even at a quarter of the speed of light time dilation would already be enough for a four year trip (ship's point of view) to seem like a century to those outside the ship. So, essentially, the ship travels to the future.
In a manner of speaking. It might be more accurate to say that time passes more slowly inside a ship that's moving really fast. I'm pretty sure that's dramatically oversimplifying the matter from a physics perspective, but in terms of practical effects that a layman would care about it's probably best to think of a relativistic ship as being in something sort of like a slow-time field.

I have a table of time dilation factors I saved from OA and various other places on the web, let me dig it up... The time dilation factor is the factor by which time is sped up in the ship (again, simplifying things enormously), so at a factor of say 10 if you spend 1 year on the journey 10 years will have passed for the people back on Earth (or wherever).

.9999 c - 70.71

.999 c - 22.37

.99 c - 7.09

.95 c - 3.2

.9 c - 2.29

.8 c - 1.67

.7 c - 1.4

.6 c - 1.25

.5 c - 1.15

I'm not sure what it would be at .25 c but I'm guessing not very significant.
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