Capricorn42
Well-Known Member
Hi all, please take a look at this effort which I wrote as a way of exploring the idea of sentient starships. The aim was to kick around a few ideas about how such things would work. What would they do? How would they relate to each other? What sort of wants and needs would they have? Iain Banks and others have been there and done it, but nearly always there are people (or at least humanoids) to add that human dimension. I’m curious as to whether it’s possible to do without the people.
The Coral Shrine
The Canyon class starship had been in a holding orbit for a day. By her standards, this was a blink of a sensor cluster. Her name was Beatrice, and she was enjoying the view.
Beatrice’s sensors alerted as an Island class spun out of hyperspace just a few thousand klicks away. This new arrival edged closer and opened up a dialogue.
“Identify: Dante. Greetings.”
“Identify: Beatrice. Why are you here?”
“Ahah.” Dante slowed and took up station five hundred klicks to her port side. “I heard you have a talent for sniffing out stuff.”
“Have you been following me?”
Pause.
“Yes. Should I apologise? I wanted to see where you were going. I collect stuff like you do.”
“Stuff? Now you sound like a Garbage class ship.”
Dante’s reactionless drive pulsed and he glided nearer still. “Apologies. Wrong noun. Artifacts, trade goods. Anything of value. Better? Anyway here you are, just hanging around, so I thought, be polite and just flat out ask what’s going on.”
Beatrice took a moment to scan Dante. Along his superstructure he, like other ships with freebooting licenses, had accumulated things that clung to him, sprouted out and dangled. She noted chunks of frozen gas, shards of iron-nickel, a contraption that might have been manufactured, or grown in a jar. She used her deep scan to look inside a small stasis field and her gravimeter pulsed. He was carrying an abnormally strong gravity well in there. Good grief, was that a neutron star?
Dante was still talking. “Now, I’m not being creepy or anything but I checked your flight records and I noticed that you spun by this world about five thousand years ago? ”
“You wasted your time. There are no trade goods here.”
“I’m not so sure. Ships will trade anything. Collecting is the new big thing, there are Capitals who will trade entire star systems if they like what you’re offering.” Dante paused, then added, “After all, what else is there to do?”
“Alright,” she admitted. “Last time I came here I was looking for trade goods. I didn’t find any but I did find life. Down there.”
Dante was dismissive. “It’s a blue-green planet. Watery. Of course it has life.”
“There was one species which showed intelligence. The kind that might end up making artefacts.”
“Alright, now this is better.” Dante was thinking out loud. “The Capitals love artefacts. They think they’re cute. Retro even. Especially rockets and big, shiny satellites. So, do we have artefacts? Only I scanned the radio spectrum and there’s nothing, and there’s nothing in orbit but us, and I’m not seeing signs of industry down there, so what’s happening? Are your pets doing anything or not?”
There was something about his direct challenges which irritated on so many levels. Beatrice felt the need to point out a few things and then she would enjoy listening to Dante’s mumbled words of respect and awe. “They’re organised. Dante, they have tribes, they have social structures, and every tribe worships the same god.”
“Worship? Is that all they do?”
“They make things. They make shrines. I’ll send you coordinates so you can look at one of them.”
Their camera arrays turned towards the planet’s surface, to a spot of ocean a klick from the edge of a vast landmass. A tower of rocks jutted up from the seabed. Balanced atop it was a structure like a long and thin collection of fingers, or tendrils, all multicoloured and glowing in the rippling light. It was made of coral.
Dante imaged the thing, ran a search in his memory, then sent a bemused message to Beatrice. “Is that supposed to be you?”
“Yes. This is what they worship. There are dozens more like it.”
“How?”
Beatrice hesitated, and wished she hadn’t. “I made the first one and installed it near a tribe, last time I was here.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I was curious to see what would happen.”
“Well something happened. You’re a god. That’s new. I like new stuff. The only problem is I don’t see how you can trade any of this, unless you want to start running guided tours for the Capitals, maybe with the option to trade for souvenirs-”
“Wait a minute. Dante, look. Look at them.”
Beneath those distant waves, a hundred or more creatures were gathering around the tower. Five of them, larger than the others, beat against the gentle current to keep station beside it. Smaller rainbow fish darted about them, keeping close as if under orders to do so. And then, the crowd parted to allow three to approach the shrine, weighed down under the gaze of the faithful. They halted, their long fins beating slowly.
None of them moved, apart from the rainbow fish swirling to and fro.
The five larger creatures abruptly darted forward, elegant and effortless, and revealed claws on their fins and sharp teeth. The water thrashed and turned red as the three were torn open. Teeth and claw, very efficient. It was all over in a few seconds and the rainbow fish swarmed and ate the remnants.
The faithful watched, impassive, fins beating gently.
Beatrice turned off her camera and switched her view to that of the lazily rolling horizon.
“I was not expecting that,” Dante said. “I don’t know much about life forms, but really, one minute they’re behaving themselves, the next minute they’re killing each other.”
“Why did they do that?” Beatrice asked.
There was a pause.
“Are you still watching? Maybe not. They’ve dispersed. It’s all over.”
The edge of this world was a pleasantly glowing arc of blue.
“What about the other shrines?”
“I should leave,” Dante announced. “You’ve got, uh, things to do. There’s nothing here for me.”
He fell silent and Beatrice let cold thoughts course through her. Of course Dante was right, he should leave. They both should. Beneath her, clouds were drifting from the west and hiding the ocean. What about the other shrines? “Where will you go?”
“Caliban System. You can trade anything there. The Capital who runs the place is a friend of mine.”
“Really? Will you swap that gravity well you have inside the stasis field?”
“You saw that?”
“A while ago I was in Caliban and I traded a ton of platinum for a sensor upgrade.”
“You can see inside a stasis field?”
Beatrice began to slowly move out of orbit. What was done, was done. “I can see enough,” she said.
The End
The Coral Shrine
The Canyon class starship had been in a holding orbit for a day. By her standards, this was a blink of a sensor cluster. Her name was Beatrice, and she was enjoying the view.
Beatrice’s sensors alerted as an Island class spun out of hyperspace just a few thousand klicks away. This new arrival edged closer and opened up a dialogue.
“Identify: Dante. Greetings.”
“Identify: Beatrice. Why are you here?”
“Ahah.” Dante slowed and took up station five hundred klicks to her port side. “I heard you have a talent for sniffing out stuff.”
“Have you been following me?”
Pause.
“Yes. Should I apologise? I wanted to see where you were going. I collect stuff like you do.”
“Stuff? Now you sound like a Garbage class ship.”
Dante’s reactionless drive pulsed and he glided nearer still. “Apologies. Wrong noun. Artifacts, trade goods. Anything of value. Better? Anyway here you are, just hanging around, so I thought, be polite and just flat out ask what’s going on.”
Beatrice took a moment to scan Dante. Along his superstructure he, like other ships with freebooting licenses, had accumulated things that clung to him, sprouted out and dangled. She noted chunks of frozen gas, shards of iron-nickel, a contraption that might have been manufactured, or grown in a jar. She used her deep scan to look inside a small stasis field and her gravimeter pulsed. He was carrying an abnormally strong gravity well in there. Good grief, was that a neutron star?
Dante was still talking. “Now, I’m not being creepy or anything but I checked your flight records and I noticed that you spun by this world about five thousand years ago? ”
“You wasted your time. There are no trade goods here.”
“I’m not so sure. Ships will trade anything. Collecting is the new big thing, there are Capitals who will trade entire star systems if they like what you’re offering.” Dante paused, then added, “After all, what else is there to do?”
“Alright,” she admitted. “Last time I came here I was looking for trade goods. I didn’t find any but I did find life. Down there.”
Dante was dismissive. “It’s a blue-green planet. Watery. Of course it has life.”
“There was one species which showed intelligence. The kind that might end up making artefacts.”
“Alright, now this is better.” Dante was thinking out loud. “The Capitals love artefacts. They think they’re cute. Retro even. Especially rockets and big, shiny satellites. So, do we have artefacts? Only I scanned the radio spectrum and there’s nothing, and there’s nothing in orbit but us, and I’m not seeing signs of industry down there, so what’s happening? Are your pets doing anything or not?”
There was something about his direct challenges which irritated on so many levels. Beatrice felt the need to point out a few things and then she would enjoy listening to Dante’s mumbled words of respect and awe. “They’re organised. Dante, they have tribes, they have social structures, and every tribe worships the same god.”
“Worship? Is that all they do?”
“They make things. They make shrines. I’ll send you coordinates so you can look at one of them.”
Their camera arrays turned towards the planet’s surface, to a spot of ocean a klick from the edge of a vast landmass. A tower of rocks jutted up from the seabed. Balanced atop it was a structure like a long and thin collection of fingers, or tendrils, all multicoloured and glowing in the rippling light. It was made of coral.
Dante imaged the thing, ran a search in his memory, then sent a bemused message to Beatrice. “Is that supposed to be you?”
“Yes. This is what they worship. There are dozens more like it.”
“How?”
Beatrice hesitated, and wished she hadn’t. “I made the first one and installed it near a tribe, last time I was here.”
“Why would you do that?”
“I was curious to see what would happen.”
“Well something happened. You’re a god. That’s new. I like new stuff. The only problem is I don’t see how you can trade any of this, unless you want to start running guided tours for the Capitals, maybe with the option to trade for souvenirs-”
“Wait a minute. Dante, look. Look at them.”
Beneath those distant waves, a hundred or more creatures were gathering around the tower. Five of them, larger than the others, beat against the gentle current to keep station beside it. Smaller rainbow fish darted about them, keeping close as if under orders to do so. And then, the crowd parted to allow three to approach the shrine, weighed down under the gaze of the faithful. They halted, their long fins beating slowly.
None of them moved, apart from the rainbow fish swirling to and fro.
The five larger creatures abruptly darted forward, elegant and effortless, and revealed claws on their fins and sharp teeth. The water thrashed and turned red as the three were torn open. Teeth and claw, very efficient. It was all over in a few seconds and the rainbow fish swarmed and ate the remnants.
The faithful watched, impassive, fins beating gently.
Beatrice turned off her camera and switched her view to that of the lazily rolling horizon.
“I was not expecting that,” Dante said. “I don’t know much about life forms, but really, one minute they’re behaving themselves, the next minute they’re killing each other.”
“Why did they do that?” Beatrice asked.
There was a pause.
“Are you still watching? Maybe not. They’ve dispersed. It’s all over.”
The edge of this world was a pleasantly glowing arc of blue.
“What about the other shrines?”
“I should leave,” Dante announced. “You’ve got, uh, things to do. There’s nothing here for me.”
He fell silent and Beatrice let cold thoughts course through her. Of course Dante was right, he should leave. They both should. Beneath her, clouds were drifting from the west and hiding the ocean. What about the other shrines? “Where will you go?”
“Caliban System. You can trade anything there. The Capital who runs the place is a friend of mine.”
“Really? Will you swap that gravity well you have inside the stasis field?”
“You saw that?”
“A while ago I was in Caliban and I traded a ton of platinum for a sensor upgrade.”
“You can see inside a stasis field?”
Beatrice began to slowly move out of orbit. What was done, was done. “I can see enough,” she said.
The End