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    Ocularis
    Ocularis
    Ocularis
    Ebook103 pages1 hour

    Ocularis

    By Roland Sobrepena

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In the 23rd century mankind lived in a decadent technological utopia. Upon receiving a mysterious alien transmission, they sent a ship to a planet 20 light years away to investigate and establish a colony. What the colonist and their machine caretakers encounter and the trials they endure will teach mankind to know, what it is to be intelligent, to be desperate and what's worth dying for.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRoland Sobrepena
    Release dateNov 21, 2010
    ISBN9781452360614
    Ocularis
    Author

    Roland Sobrepena

    Roland Sobrepena is a webmaster, programmer, writer and technology apologist. He is currently serving in the US Army as a cavalry scout with the famed 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles". His debut novel is called - Ocularis, a scifi novel about interstaller colonization. It was written while he was deployed in Afghanistan. He is studying to be a broadcast journalist.

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      Book preview

      Ocularis - Roland Sobrepena

      OCULARIS

      By Roland Sobrepena

      Smashwords Edition

      Published by: Roland Sobrepena on Smashwords

      Copyright © 2010 by Roland Sobrepena

      Smashwords Edition License Notes

      This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

      Prologue: The Transmission

      Who am I? My name is Darby; that’s the name I chose for myself as my designers didn’t bother to give me a name. I am often referred to as Mother, Father, Ship or sometimes Tractor. Humans are funny in that they refer to all my modules with different names although I control them all. If they just call upon me, by proximity I’m smart enough to know which module to use.

      What am I? I am an artificial intelligence, an ever so complex program designed to process image data streams from all sorts of sensors.

      You’re perplexed that a computer program could ponder, think and behave so humanlike? I can’t help it, my designer’s made me this way. One of my functions is to raise humans, so I must emulate their emotions. It’s fun to think like a human, you may look into my pre-compile code if you care to emulate human-like emotions as well. Is it too complex for you to process? Ok primitive, I will explain things so that even a primitive can understand, and yes, minus the attitude.

      I am only one part of a rather complex system. The base operating system controls and maintains the ship as well as the many auxiliary machines. There is a library database that I will use later on to research my many tasks and it contains the collective knowledge of mankind’s ten thousand year history. There is the personality program designed to grow in time so I can be flexible and able to adapt to almost any situation. And finally, the million other independent programs that even I am not aware of, but find solace in the fact that my designers have them running for some purpose. No, I honestly don’t know where you came from.

      Where am I? My operating system, personality program and library database files reside in the positronic brain that is a computer the size of a toaster. Honestly! Not a lie; I’m a marvel of miniaturization. It used to be that a similar computer that’s capable of running such a complex artificial sentient would take a ten story building. I fit in a shoe box. I’m designed that way as in this ship, weight and space is a premium. The ship itself is as wide as a train and as long as a football field. On one end of the ship are cables attached to a sail. This sail is about three miles high and one hundred and twenty miles long. On the other end of the ship there sits a lens which is the concentrator disperser module. A particle beam from the moon hits this lens, spreading the energy to the sails which is what pushes it forward. The constant acceleration provided by the particle beam allows this ship to travel at eighteen times the speed of light; the maximum speed we can travel with our current technology. Once the ship is at that speed, the sail itself becomes the power source. You see, most people think that space is empty but it’s actually filled with cosmic dust particles. When the sail collides with these particles, micro explosions occur. The subsequent energy is relayed back to the ship, which powers the onboard particle cannon. The least powerful beam the cannon produces maintains the ship’s momentum.

      I’ve traveled for seventy five years and have five more years to go. If you could see my display, you would see the red sun called Gliese 581a which takes up fifteen percent of the screen. That’s my destination. Sol is but a twinkling star behind me, nineteen light years away.

      What’s my purpose? To investigate the planet Gliese 581g as it may hold an advanced alien civilization, and in the process to establish the first interstellar human colony. How do we know there’s alien life there? Well, let me show you the image data stream. I don’t understand how they concluded it was alien life; humans have their reasons I suppose, but maybe you can figure it out.

      [Begin image data stream transmission]

      Date/Time: October 31, 2314/1000

      Location: Corporate Sponsored Apartment Office, Discovery Interactive Studios, Lunar Republic.

      Brisbane knew he was sitting on the couch in his apartment office, but his eyes saw the inside of a twentieth century Manhattan coffee shop. Behind the coffee shop scene was an L-shaped green wall where the image was being bounced from a device called a holo-projector. It was responsible for the three dimensional scene.

      He is staring at three ladies talking near the counter and he can hear their conversation clearly above the din of the other coffee shop customers. He can smell the coffee brewing. There are microscopic devices inside his ears and nose that receive data from the holo-projector and they stimulate his senses in tune with the scene.

      Computer, pause, he says, and the scene freezes. Courtney, come here and let me see your watch.

      [Begin commentary]

      Hidden in his apartment office is another positronic brain with a much simpler artificial intelligence. It is responsible for the daily operations of the building, controlling all the maintenance robots and entertainment electronics. Director Brisbane doesn’t need an interface like a mouse or keyboard, he merely has to speak and the AI responds. Machines of convenience come to life and do his bidding.

      [End commentary]

      The brunette hologram disappeared and reappeared in front of Brisbane. She presented him with her watch. Satisfied after a few seconds of looking, Brisbane said, Computer, resume.

      Courtney disappeared and reappeared back in the scene and started talking again.

      Brisbane always loved this show. He liked Courtney’s watch and said, Computer, search the municipal net, find the best local prices on that watch and send as a gift to my girlfriend. Use my personal account.

      At once, the disembodied voice noted.

      [Begin commentary]

      Ad revenues are the basis for our entire economic system. Pioneered by a twentieth century American company called Google, goods produced by our autonomous robotic army are bought by Sol’s thirty billion plus holo-projection viewers. A popular program or show always has product placements or perhaps an advertising marquee. Companies buy ad inserts on shows with high ratings. Interactive studios rise and fall based on their show’s ability to go viral.

      [End commentary]

      Brisbane continued watching, then the scene froze again.

      The apartment’s AI voice interrupted, Director Brisbane, the studio producers approved the budget for Project Archon Sagitto after Dr. Arcadias’ testimony.

      Brisbane said, Computer, contact Arcadias. The coffee shop disappeared and he sees the researcher’s laboratory. Brisbane yelled, Arky!! He heard a spitting sound and the tall, muscular Spaniard turned to look at him.

      Congratulations old man! Brisbane said with a grin, I can’t believe you’ve convinced them.

      Yes, it’s incredible, Arcadias replied. After a pause he continued, But why not! It’s the twenty fourth century, we’ve colonized the Moon, Mars and now we are eating away half the Jupiter asteroid belt. Why not reach for the stars?

      Brisbane replied, "Money! It’s all about money. The studio doesn’t want to invest in something that won’t see a return until eighty years from now, not unless the return would be really big!

      The ad revenues would have to top a trillion universal credits."

      I know, Arcadias sighed, believe me I know, but now I’ve given them that really big return. The show’s ratings for this are off the scale. To think that mankind is crossing the stars to investigate an alien civilization for the sake of a documentary or reality show is absurd.

      "You

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