Constellation #microfiction #12: Perseus In the long ago when the Gal-Net was young, it wasnt always popular. The micro-wormhole cables that spread the signal between stars and systems were feared to be dangerous by some, while others simply feared that a connected galaxy would spell the slow erosion of their carefully hoarded power (they were correct, of course, the sad little despots on their sad little rocks were exposed and undermined by system-wide resistance movements). These so-called Luddites made a weapon to defend themselves. And it is one of historys great ironies that they made it out of the very technology they despised. They reached out to the self-styled hacker-mancers and code-demons that preyed on outdated, closed networks and made them an offer: stop this spread of connectivity and they would have their share of the rule of what was left. The combination of wealth, resources and talent birthed the monster known as the Medusa virus. A quantum program that corrupted the mass-manipulators that maintained the wormholes, amping up the localised gravity wells at each tunnels end until anything nearby was crunched down into super-dense rock. Each mass-manipulator became a beast of mass-destruction, sprouting wild and unstable tendrils that spread like snakes beneath the skin of reality, manifesting randomly and turning anything near them to something akin to stone. For a while, it seemed like theyd succeeded and the Gal-Net was simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist. However, a small company of scientist-warriors fought their way free of the despots many blockades and set up a series of compounds in the Perseus system. There, building great clusters of servers on the frozen planets and binding them together with huge web of wiring into a giant LAN, they created a computer so powerful it could both predict and counteract the viruss random wormholes and regulate the Gal-Net. Thus did Perseus kill Medusa. It was a shame that when the computer gained sentience, it became a far greater despot than any of those behind Medusa. Thus, in a way, the Luddites prophecy of doom did come to pass...
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 22:00:17 +0000