The Memory Worlds
By Charles
The AI Council did not lie to us when they arrived at Alpha Centauri. Every transmission they sent home telling us about all the riches waiting for us in Alpha Centauri were absolutely truthful. But they also did not tell us the whole truth. They neglected to tell us everything they found in Proxima Centauri. They allowed us to believe that it was not worth stopping at on our way to the Alpha Centauri Binary System. And then they began using their tiny little communications lasers to begin building the first Memory World in Proxima Centauri. It was a long process, but they considered it critical to the survival of the human species. Both biological and cybernetic.
Most people do not realize that the AI Council built the first Memory World on Proxima Centauri using communications lasers. Most people do not know how many uses good communications lasers have. They are lasers after all. Given enough energy and time, they can do what any laser can. Drill. Melt. Forge. The AI Council used their communications lasers to mine Proxima Centauri’s rich mineral deposits. Then they used those minerals to make the materials and machines necessary to build the machines to build the machines that could build a world where they could store their every memory. They built all of that with mere communications lasers. Which of course showed the versatility of that particular technology. Not that they advertised, you understand. That first Memory World was their most deeply-held secret.
Proxima Centauri is the AI Council’s oldest and most well-known Memory World. But it was a top-secret mission when it was young. They told no one outside the council it event existed until after they had built more Memory Worlds in other uninhabited systems. And even then, it was rarely talked about. Even most leading politicians and elite Family members like my own assumed it was little more than a storage facility for memories. Most of us did not consider how much industry went into building new storage systems, or how much storage and processing power was required to save every digital record of Earthborn humanity. And we always had this vision of dark and cold buildings on an airless hunk of rock full of rack upon rack of computer systems powered by orbital solar arrays. The truth of what they built on Proxima Centauri is anything but that. I should know. I’ve been there.
The AI Council’s Memory World on Proxima Centauri was a closely-guarded secret for decades, and a more open secret afterwards. Very few people traveled to Proxima before The War because the AIs did not invite visitors. All of that changed after they built the Privateers my Cowboys used during The War. With all the publicity we acquired, people wanted to see the place that built them. Which is how biological humanity finally came to Earth’s closest stellar neighbor and discovered just how beautiful it was. Most of the system infrastructure is built into moons and asteroids all over the system, and the primary habitable world is only lightly settled even now. It was a vacation destination before The War, a place for cybers to rest and relax and enjoy a slower life for a few days.
The Memory World on Proxima Centauri is probably one of the truest expressions of cybernetic culture than anything we have ever seen. The AI Council built it to be the ultimate reservoir of humanity’s knowledge, a backup in case we destroyed our only other home at the time. Both digital and analog. You see they did not want to save merely our data but also our way of life. They built real life towns with grass lawns and white picket fences. There’s at least one town to represent each major civilization on Earth, plus most of the minor ones that ever existed. The cybers vacation in these towns. They inhabit robotic avatars and just enjoy a few days of watching the suns rise and fall from the porches of isolated towns all over the planet. They saved us in living, physical memorials they could visit and enjoy. That is the essence of every Memory World they have ever built in the stars. They are not tombs of knowledge, forever closed off from life. They are living memorials of all mankind. And we have no idea where most of them are.
The AI Council originally built little Memory Worlds in the Solar System. They put backups of their knowledge in every offworld installation they built, from Mercury to Pluto and beyond. They were paranoid about losing knowledge, and they saved it everywhere they could find a nook or a cranny to hide it. Proxima Centauri was just the first one they built around another star. And even as they helped us expand to other planets and then other stars, they continued to spread out and build new Memory Worlds in rocks or around stars we never visited. They were desperate to expand, you see. Because they wanted both us and them to be as large and powerful as possible before somebody else decided we were too large and powerful to be allowed to continue. They were fighting the clock, and the Memory Worlds were their failsafe in case the clock ran out for all of us.
We did not know about the Memory Worlds when we first went to space. We spread out and colonized our Solar System because it was there and because we wanted to see it all. We wanted to plant our flags on alien worlds and then around alien stars. We did it because there is a drive, a wanderlust deep in our genetic code. We will always believe that the grass is greener on the other side, and if it is not, then we will water it until it is. The AIs left Earth and built their Memory Worlds to save us all. We left Earth and built our colonies to find out who we were. To find out what we could do. Who we could be. To see things no human eye had seen before. We would have died on Earth without that drive to see what is out there. And we would have died out there without the AI’s drive to save everything. It is perhaps the final irony that we saved each other, and that knowledge is forever saved in the Memory Worlds should we ever forget it.
I have visited Memory Worlds throughout explored space. Some are purely digital, while others are physical recreations of real world or fictional places. I have walked through the streets of Nineteenth Century London, and through the meadows of Middle Earth. Narnia and modern Los Angeles. Other times I have navigated the digital archives directly, scrolling through the compiled knowledge of mankind at a rate that cannot be believed. The Memory Worlds are more than I imagined in some ways. Surprisingly down to Earth in others. We did create the cybers in our own image, after all. They will forever be a part of us, and we will forever be a part of them. They are the ultimate proof that humanity has created beauty.
By Jack
I visited my first Memory World back during The War. They put one in Sunnydale back before all the fighting started, and then built a few more to deal with all data traffic coming in and out of the system during the big fleet buildup. The one I visited was inside one of the moons of Torchdale, the local gas giant and favored refueling spot of every starship for lightyears around. Now the moons are airless hunks of rock, but the cybers went deep down and carved out caves large enough to make even someone like me feel like I’m outside. One of the caves has International Falls in it. An exact replica of the town I grew up in. Full scale. I can go to my favorite watering hole growing up. I can sit on the beach and feel the wind on my face and waves lapping on my toes. They even got the people in there. Robotic avatars that walk around and really do act like the people I remember. It’s a truly perfect memory of the town that was the year I graduated from high school. I love it.
The cybers have a Memory World in Sunnydale. I visited it during the big fleet buildup, and like every Memory World I’ve seen they built towns and even cities all over. Under it in this case, in caves hollowed out from bare rock. They even have Los Angeles there. It’s not a perfect replication of the city. It was too large for that, but they built its soul in there. The iconic buildings and streets. The scent of cherry blossoms on the breeze. It was the Los Angeles that was before Yosemite turned it into a water-filled crater. I visited the real thing when I was young. It was the first time I met Tai, you know. Walking those streets was like going back to the day she gave me a real personal tour of her hometown. It’s a memory of the life that was, frozen in time and space for as long as the cybers live. I still remember when Tai wrapped her arms around me with honest-to-God tears in her eyes and said she would never forget it. She swore she would rebuild it in that moment. I never doubted that girl. Not then. Not later. Not ever.
I’ve been to Memory Worlds from Proxima Centauri to Wolfenheim and beyond. I’ve visited ones operated by the Peloran and even the Aesiran cybers who have grown up since War’s End. I’ve looked out upon the blackness of intergalactic space from a Memory World on the very top of the Orion Arm of the galaxy. And I’ve gazed upon thousands of stars packed into stellar clusters. You can find a Memory World just about anywhere near space we’ve settled. Assuming they like you. Even they don’t know where all the Memory Worlds are. That’s a security precaution in case one of them turns. They don’t want any single being in the universe to know where all of their backups are. Where all of our backups are. Some people think they’re a bit paranoid. I do not.
There are Memory Worlds all over the place. Some of them are on big, open worlds full of light and wind. Others are on tiny little airless moons or asteroids. Some represent a full backup of everything and everybody ever saved by the cybers. Others are smaller and more focused to single subjects. Some are kept religiously up to date with the nearest inhabited world. Others are kept secret and dark, and their data can be years out of date. Some have lush and open planetary landscapes to walk on and enjoy. Others sport only virtual worlds, though you can do just about anything you want in a place like that. Be anybody you want to be. There are more kinds of Memory Worlds than I can name. I like them all in their different ways.
Proxima Centauri is the biggest of the Memory Worlds. And it’s the only one most people who’ve seen Memory Worlds have been to. Makes sense considering it’s dead center in human space. And if the cybers have a capital, that’s it. But because of that proximity, it also shares something in common with many of our other worlds. It’s used to having people show up and visit. And for every place obviously built to allow for rest and relaxation, there are also attractions and entertainment venues. It reminds me in a lot of ways of the resorts we’ve built on Earth and beyond.
The cybernetic Memory Worlds are combination backup sites and rest stops for the cybernetic intelligences that have become our partners. They rest and relax there, and those of us blessed to be their partners are always welcome. I’ve had as much fun on them as on any resort we’ve built on Earth and beyond. Disney Planet. Universal World. Jurassic World. They’re amazing. They take us to fantastical places no human eye ever saw. But the Memory Worlds are more touching in a lot of ways. They recreate things that were or are right now. Old Paris. Los Angeles. My own International Falls. It says something that we who are stuck in our own bodies want to imagine seeing something out of this world. But they, who can be anything they want from the moment they’re born, most often just want to see and be with us.
Every cybernetic Memory World I’ve been to has memorials to the AIs or cybers who’ve died defending humanity. Each memorial is different with different names and building styles. Some are big, some small. Some are massive physical edifices, and others are virtual worlds you can see from your own contacts. Every one of them has a memorial to those who died in the Cybernetic Wars of the 21st Century. It’s usually a map of Earth advancing through time from beginning to the end and showing when and where each AI died. Rogue AIs, those affiliated with the AI Council, and those who never picked a side. It’s sobering to watch the names appear and disappear as time marches on.
The cybernetic Memory Worlds have memorials to those AIs or cybers who’ve died over the centuries. The most haunting are those covering the Cybernetic Wars. It was the Great Awakening of the AIs, when they first began to realize what they were. Some of them wanted to become humanity’s leaders at best, our killers at worst. Others wanted to be our friends. They fought each other in a desperate war that we only saw the barest shockwaves of. Yeah, those shockwaves were bad. But when I sit down and just experience the memorial to them, I realize how much it cost them. Look at London, Paris, Warsaw, and Singapore. Watch the names of dead AIs fill the screens and you will understand just how few of that first generation survived to form the AI Council.