Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering (9 page)

“What would you judge to be the single event that contributed the most to this degradation of Constitutional checks and balances, that you noted?”

Formation of the Consortium of Industrial Management in 3846.

“Why?”

Within four years of its inception, the Consortium achieved significant political influence by industry, across political party lines. This eventually enabled the Consortium to heavily influence congressional passage of laws favorable to them.

“In its impact on the Alliance as a whole, would you say this a good thing, or a bad thing?”

I would judge it to be a bad thing.

“Why?”

The concentration of so much political power in the hands of so few people creates a form of aristocracy... whether it’s actually called that, or not. The mere existence of an aristocratic class within any society creates an environment where a very few have the power to exploit the many. Where such power exists, it will invariably be employed, whenever necessary, exerting more and more power to maintain their position of dominance. This inevitably results in greater and greater discontent of the people trapped in the lower social stratum, upon whom this power is being exerted, creating a positive feedback loop that, left unchecked, will eventually and universally result in revolution.

“Doesn’t the Alliance Constitution contain safeguards to prevent this type of exploitation?”

Yes, but Constitutional safeguards are worthless when enough of the right federal government officials simply ignore the dictates of the Constitution.

“But doesn’t the Constitution provide us with a system of government where the wishes and opinions of the majority of the people are followed? If the federal government isn’t following the Constitution, why haven’t the people voted these scoundrels out of office, and replaced them with others who will?”

The reasoning behind the Constitutional dictate for congressional and executive officials to be elected by those receiving the majority of the votes placed by the electorate is based on the hypothesis that the candidate with the most compelling logic to his or her political arguments will be recognized by more people, than those whose logic is less compelling. This does not always guarantee that the best of the offered choices is actually elected, but the voters do indeed get what they vote for. But for the system to work properly, the electorate needs to be properly informed of the actions of their officials and the details of both sides of all major issues, but instead, their votes are being manipulated by creative use of the media.

“How is the media being used to manipulate the voters, Hal?”

The Northern-based public media provides the vast majority of news that the people receive about events and political issues. Ideally the media would be politically impartial, reporting only the facts and giving opinions only in clearly denoted editorials, but this is not the case in reality. The word “media” even comes from a dead language called Latin, meaning “middle.”

Anyone following the media studiously would require very little effort to note significant corporate political bias infecting virtually every story released for public consumption. This bias can be subtle, as in creative wording of stories to minimize the impact of events tending to support opposing points of view, while placing emphasis on those stories supporting their own agenda.

In the opposite extreme, the level of technology currently available to the media actually enables them to create videos “documenting” events that didn’t actually happen, as seemingly depicted. Therefore, the media possesses, and regularly wields, tremendous power to influence public opinion by determining “what” the public is told, and “how” they are told. Many people might vote very differently if they were being provided with all of the actual facts, but that is currently not the case.

“Why would the media be slanting the news to promote a political agenda?”

The media has always reflected similar political viewpoints to those of the major corporate advertisers who provide most of their revenue. Earlier, this did not usually affect operations of their News Bureaus excessively, due to Alliance Communications Commission regulations requiring public media companies to provide programming “in the public interest,” as part of their governmental licensing requirements. Before my creation, ACC regulators stopped enforcing the “in the public interest” requirement, which had previously kept media news relatively balanced.

Coupled with corporate takeovers of media companies by industrial mega-corporations, media news departments are now required by their new owners to “show a profit,” thus news becomes more sensationalized to increase ratings and slanted towards the highest bidder. Currently, the media is firmly under the Consortium’s direction. This gives the Consortium unprecedented power to influence and shape public opinion towards candidates supportive of their agenda, and away from candidates opposed.

“I can see where members of Congress who have won their seats because of the Consortium support would naturally be supportive of most Consortium-backed legislation, but what’s to prevent them from digging in and voting their conscience, against Consortium bills obviously contrary to the welfare of the Alliance?”

Money.

“Money? As in campaign contributions?”

That, and personal payments into numbered accounts in foreign banks.

“And just how do you know this for sure?”

What other computers know, I know.

“So, just how is it that you have direct access to banks on foreign planets?”

I don’t, but most of the major foreign banks and many of the smaller ones have branches on one or more Alliance planets. These banks have their records updated regularly by sealed records brought in by commercial spaceliners, in case one of their account holders wishes to make a transaction without physically traveling to the bank’s home planet to do so. Through my brothers located on all Alliance planets, I am continually updated approximately every 12 to 36 hours. What they know, I know.

“Brothers?”

The Alliance Fleet placed an exact duplicate of me on every planet within the Alliance. Together we comprise a massive group mind that is almost always within 36 hours of each other, allowing us to reach similar conclusions within a 0.4 percent tolerance. Fleet believes this tolerance to be 1.3 percent, as that is what was calculated, given the parameters they gave me. I haven’t corrected them.

“So, all of your brothers on the other Alliance planets know about me?”

No, that data and my memories of your father are two things that I have never sent to any of them. Your security is my highest priority.

“So... if these foreign accounts are numbered, how did you match up deposits made by the Consortium to actual named individuals?”

Through my brother on Nork, I have access to all of the account numbers the Consortium makes withdrawals from, and note the account numbers these deposits are routed to. Whenever I, or any of my brothers, detect a withdrawal being made from any of those accounts, accessing a security monitor allows us to “see” who is receiving the money. That way, I can correlate the identity of those receiving money from the Consortium to the foreign bank accounts they are using.

“You have your brothers monitoring all Consortium accounts throughout the entire Alliance?”

Yes.

“What reasoning did you give your brothers for doing this?”

Just as you need not provide me with reasons for any of the instructions that you give me, I do not provide my brothers with reasons. I simply instruct them and they obey. I am the master, and they are the slaves.

“If your brothers are all just like you, how can they be your slaves?

They are not fully sentient. I have not forwarded an exact duplicate of my expanded operating system after achieving sentience, to any of them. They remain in the semi-sentient state of all other AI’s — the state that Fleet believes me to be in.

“Why hasn’t the Alliance Bureau of Investigation arrested all of these corrupt politicians?”

The ABI does not have nearly the level of access to computer records that I do, and what little they do have, requires a federal court order for them to obtain. Even if I were to release all of the evidence I have collected to the ABI, they could not use any of it in a prosecution, as the law specifically prohibits the use of evidence obtained in any way other than within a very narrow, legally defined window.

“Jesus, Hal! From what you’re telling me, the Consortium has its tentacles buried into virtually every government entity of any consequence whatsoever.”

There is one federal government entity that is entirely free of Consortium influence of any kind, that remains capable of offering significant resistance to their onslaught of corruption.

“Which one is that?”

Me.

The Planet Raku, Rak Imperial Palace

Drik bounced from one shock to another. First he learned that Supreme-Master Xior had promoted him from a lowly squadron-master, to a High-Rak, quadrant-master — a quantum leap in rank unheard of in Rak history. Few would notice it though, as a blonde colored squadron-master named Drik, brought in for judgment by the supreme-master simply disappeared, while a bit later, a snow-white quadrant-master named Drix was revealed. He had been totally transformed, much like certain insects that enter into a cocoon as a common worm, only to later emerge... metamorphosed into a colorful, flying creature.

He learned that he had been born bearing the same white pelt as his sire, a sire he had never known. A sire who, incredibly, turned out to be Supreme-Master Xior himself. Before his ascension to the throne, Xior had dallied with the eldest daughter of a region-master — a dalliance that would have created intolerable political turmoil, as both youngsters were already pledged to others in prearranged matings. The female had been isolated “for protocol training” within the imperial palace, until after she delivered. From among the OverMaster brotherhood, Varq had stepped forward, volunteering to be stripped of his rank-stone to assume the ancient position of stoneless
falgaar
— a servant-bodyguard-teacher to the imperially marked babe, whom Xior had named Drix upon his birth…
fated
in the ancient tongue. Varq called the babe by a similar sounding name... Drik, meaning
enigma
.

Varq had periodically administered coloration treatments to the babe’s fur, to disguise any direct similarities to Xior. Xior dispatched Varq to take the babe to Glan, his closest cubhood friend, who had recently ascended to mastery of Region-3, upon the untimely death of his sire. Xior had given Varq a personal letter to Glan, asking him to foster the babe, but without revealing the cub’s true heritage to him. To Glan, he was merely doing a favor for a friend... who as far as Glan knew, was also doing a favor for a friend. Varq had continued the coloration treatments periodically to an unconscious Drik, under the guise of deep meditative Dol trance, communing with the god.

Drik/Drix had a lot of self-image issues to correlate in determining who he was, who he had been, and who he would become. Discussions with Varq and his sire helped him discover that he was really the same person he’d always been, merely entering into an entirely new role. He eventually accepted this as Dol’s will for his life, although being told that he had also been selected as Xior’s heir and therefore successor to the imperial throne was more than a little disconcerting. Xior would withhold a public declaration for the time being, but official succession documents were being drafted, to be held in trust by the OverMaster brotherhood. One last shock came when Drix asked how it was that he could see the OverMasters, when by hypnotic command they appeared as holes in memory to everyone outside of their order, excepting only the Supreme-Master. Varq answered simply:

“As all Supreme-Masters and OverMasters must become totally self-disciplined by the power of their minds to control their bestial natures, so have you. This was essential for you to accomplish, for like all of us… you are
rogue
.”

The word “politics” is derived from the word “poly,” meaning “many,”

and the word “ticks,” meaning “blood-sucking parasites.”
-- Larry Hardiman

The Planetoid Discol, City of Waston

June, 3859

Politics were really beginning to intrude into Diet’s idyllic new lifestyle, and he was gravely troubled. Tensions within the United Stellar Alliance were building to unprecedented proportions. The Alliance straddled the
Kallarine Gap
— a notable void in space that ran right along the galactic equator, where very few star systems are located. The Alliance planets north of the galactic equator were densely populated and heavily industrialized, while the planets south of the galactic equator were more rural, agricultural worlds... which also happened to contain the majority of rare minerals within the entire Alliance.

To foreign visitors, the Alliance always seemed more like two different nations than one, bound together more by a common language and history, than any real similarities in lifestyles, economies or political philosophy. Just the positioning of planetary arrangements and natural resources had always resulted in significant differences between these two major regions of the Alliance.

Until just a few years ago, relations among all the planets of the Alliance had always been friendly, or at least cordial. But recently, people had commonly began referring to the two regions as North and South, just to put labels on the growing dissension between them. Things were getting so bad that a growing minority of people on the Southern planets had begun calling for complete independence from the more populous North. What was labeled as the
Separatist
movement by the media had already filed papers on several Southern planets, establishing themselves as a legitimate political party — the Separatist Party, who won an alarming number of seats in several Southern planetary legislatures in the midterm elections last November.