Max smiled at Nico. They seed to have stumped the AI system in the base, and now it was trying to calculate what an appropriate fight for them would be. But, unfortunately, since they didn't fight the targets that it expected them to, it couldn't get a reliable data set from them.
[Analysis failed. Please report for debriefing.] The computer announced after a few minutes of silence, and the far door to the testing arena opened to show them a set of stairs headed downward.
"Well, that's a relief. I thought we were going to have to waste all sorts of ti here, but perhaps we can talk directly to the one who is really running this place and find out what is going on." Max joked as they entered the stairwell.
As soon as they had both passed through, the door closed behind them, and a soft blue light illuminated their walkway. The stairs led to what appeared to be either an antique supercomputer or perhaps the most glorious facility mainfra that they had ever seen. It took up an entire floor of the building, extending all the way to the walls, according to his sensors, and surrounded by energy barriers and a precision climate control system.
"Isn't this a bit excessive?" Nico asked, gesturing to the room in general.
[On the contrary. The combined computing power of this facility has been deed insufficient to calculate our mission objective.] The computer voice replied.
"Why don't you tell us what your mission is, and we will see if we can help you with that. As you said earlier, you may just lack data, and the insufficient fra of reference may have led you to inappropriate test paraters." Nico offered.
[This facility was designed to develop a thod by which a sentient species could be made immortal and impervious to the common weapons of the Alliance species. This was done with the requirent that the end product would be compatible with a neural data transfer from the facility owners so that their selected subjects would beco eternal and undying.]
"And what about the hybrids upstairs? How did you end up at that stage?" Max asked.
[The hybrid species were developed as test subjects before this facility was brought online. They were developed at another lab facility and transferred here when they were determined to be incompatible with the ntal transfer process. Their dominant strain overrode the ntal transfers and led to the extermination of an entire batch of volunteer minds.
As such, they have been deed a failure and brought here as workers, along with their lobotomized leader. Its presence was deed necessary to provide guidance for their activities, and with its mind inactive, this facility is capable of giving orders to its subordinates.]
So, the Rain Shield Corporation was crazier than Max had thought that they were. This wasn't the only place where they had run insane experints, and they were using poorly controlled Klem hybrids as slave labour.
"How many other species and samples have been removed from the Galaxy where the Dominant Strain of your hybrids originated?" Nico asked curiously.
[Only one remaining sample. A biochanical sample was reprogramd as the core of this AI facility.]
Max struggled to recall a biochanical species in his galaxy unless they ant a cyborg, but Nico caught on right away.
"Would its original form have had multiple flexible arms and a round central processing core?"
[Affirmative. I believe that your species referred to them as the Scavengers. The na was deed inappropriate, as when provided with resources, the sample preferred to recreate their own items as opposed to scavenging them from the available resources.]
Nico chuckled. "The na ca from their propensity for gathering materials from disabled vessels. So, did you use their programming as the core for your intelligence base? That might explain the issues that you have run into. Their database and programming are slightly flawed, and they have problems understanding the nature of biological beings."
[Confird. A large amount of data was added to the Facility Core in order to offset the issue. The original data set conflicted directly with the objectives that were given to the facility, as the sample had already determined that organic life was in direct opposition to a goal of immortality.]
That was how the Scavenger AI went rogue, to begin with. Its creator had tried to kill it off, and it had done whatever it could to survive before determining that a chanical form was superior and that biological life should be eliminated from the universe.
"Well, it is possible to create a nearly eternal biological life form, but your goal of utilizing a singular body for the purpose is the least efficient path toward your goal. Instead, if you took a species that self-replicated through mitosis, you can also transfer mories and personality, creating a clone that will provide functional immortality as long as the final copy is never destroyed.
Then you just need to look for a way to make them longer lived so that a single body can be expected to survive three generations reliably, with a strong healing factor, and you will have achieved your goal." Nico explained.
She was referring to the Myceloid species, and with a bit of tweaking for survivability, there wouldn't be any issues completing the task that this facility had been assigned without any more insane experints on extrely dangerous and nearly indestructible species.
Well, maybe it would need so experints with indestructibility since the AI had been tasked to make the bodies impervious to most weapons, but it shouldn't need the Klem to do that. Or, at least, it shouldn't need any more Klem to do that, as it already had such a large data set for the species.
[Please remain where you are while you are scanned for addition to the database.] The Base computer announced.
Energy barriers popped up around Max and Nico individually, and the soft blue lights in the room began to cycle between blue and purple in what seed to be the computer's version of the [working] animation that many standard tablets used.
[Thank you for your cooperation. The data set has been anded, and the processing will be complete within seventeen hours.] The computer announced, but Max noticed that it didn't let them out of the barrier.
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