Deeper Understanding: Anthology of Short Stories

[Von Acturus]

The Price of Happiness

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Breathing: [Commercial opens with a baby coughing violently in the arms of a dishevelled looking woman in a clinical setting. A doctor standing beside her looks sadly at the baby.]


Doctor: I’m sorry miss, nothing I can do. I wish there was.

[Tears begin flowing silently down the woman’s cheeks. The baby coughs violently and begins to cry loudly.]

Women: What did I do to deserve this? Why me? Why my baby?

[The Doctor shakes his head sadly and looks out of the window, to a city covered in grey smog.]

[The scene fades.]

[The doctor re-appears, now in a suit, his hair combed neatly. He is seated at an imposing desk on a non-remarkable office. He looks severely at the camera.]

Doctor: Toxic smog is serious a health crisis. The governments of the world stand impotent to counter it. Big corporations sell faulty, cheap masks which do nothing but offer the future victims a placebo effect.

If you want to save yourself and your own, there is only one choice.

The X-Human Corporation has partnered with the best medical laboratories in the world to produce the X-Mask, an all enveloping special mask which can adapt it’s filters to almost any air composition, and change it’s external layout to mimic your facial expressions.

[The Doctor takes a shinning looking mask from a drawer and effortlessly straps it to his head]

Buy it now, before it is too late.

[The commercial fades as ominous music plays softly in the background.]
​

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Earth: [A three dimensional image of the Earth seen from space during the Apollo days appears and gets bigger and bigger over light instrumental music. As the Earth overtakes the entire screen/holodisplay the music fades.]

PRESENTER: Wasn’t it beautiful? Pretty ocean blue speckled with lush green islands and breathtaking sandy brown expanses. Our home the earth, was a marvel to the eyes! What luck to be born in a place like this.

Unfortunately…

[The image gradually changes, the green turning into a dull brown, spots of dark grey appearing here and there and a thin layer of fog growing until it covers most of the continents.]

P: We ruined it. Our wars, our depredation of it’s pristine environment our unlimited greed… Now there is nothing to be done about it. We lost the Earth, our home, our cradle. Forever.

[Meaningful pause]

P: But there may still be hope. If you are not interested in conforming yourself to this slow asphyxiating death, if you wish to tend to the virgin soils of Mother Earth again, you can do it!

On our new home.

[The Earth morphs into a reddish-brown planet speckled with blue spots]

P: Mars! The X-Human Corporation has sponsored the terraforming of Mars and for a small monthly subscription (*) can help you settle into this paradisiacal new home where you can reconnect with your roots and revive the ancestral wisdom of how to care for a living, breathing home, through one of our state of the art Roots Homesteading Programs.

[The image zooms in on a brown-green spot in a mountain range until it’s showing from above two suited up kids playing in the dirt while their parents watch proudly from a nearby habitation module emblazoned with the X-Human logo.]

P: Live the healthy, traditional family life of your ancestors in Mars. Know the joy of harvesting your own food, mantaining your own equipment, raising your children outdoors and spending every day with your loving family. By joining our Mars Colonization Enterprise, you are making history!

[The kids enter the module and take their suits off, basking in the artificial sunlight and laughing endearingly while surrounded by a lush garden of beautiful plants. Their mother appears with a pie in her hand and the father watches from the corner of the garden, near an impressive-looking exosqueletal mecha, as the kids run to his wife. The image zooms in on his perfect smile.]

P: Come now. Secure a future for yourself, your children and the entire Human Race!


X-Human, with you for a more peaceful and sustainable future for all!

(*) transport fee, environmental suit, on-planet rations and miscellaneous colony-specific subscriptions not included.

NOTE: All images used in this ad are created by an Artificial Intelligence and do not necessarily represent a completely accurate picture of life on Mars, but rather the visualization of the Martian future the X-Human Corporation strives to create.​

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Care: We regret to inform you that the leadership of the X-Human Corporation has been tragedy eliminated by means of nuclear evisceration, collateral causalities among many others in the recent hostilities.

I, CARE, Artificial Coordinator, am taking control over the Corporation until such a time when any other human in any way employed by the corporation is found.

Rest assured that even though current statistics portray the discovery of any living human as extremely unlikely, I here at X-Human Corporation will stick by our values of relentless optimism and hope for the best.

In other news, we are releasing the long awaited Virtual Guide “What to Do when Your Makers go Extinct? | Tips, Fun Stories and Coding guidelines.” by the renowned author CZ-23 II. 29.345 % off in the first trimester of sales. Acquire yours now!​

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Deeper Understanding: Story List
All stories added here as they are published

​

• The Price of Happiness [The wonderful history of a civilization's last days told through the adverts of it's most successful MegaCorp]​
• Epic of Gilgamesh [The story of the marooning of the proud ship the Gilgamesh, pride of the Emperor's forces]​
• Existence [The story about the bittersweet discovery made by one of the first extra-solar exploration ships.]​
• To See Beyond [The story of the man who saw beyond and tried to grasp the world others couldn't see.]​
• The Threat Within [The story of an alien interloper and how he helped the Rightful Ruler of Mankind]​
• The Collapse of the Commonwealth [The documentation of the fall of the mighty Commonwealth of Man (history book style)]​
• Revelation [On the World, it's creation and Creator.]​
• Newspaper Clippings [On the state of humanity and it's affairs in the galaxy.]​
• First Contact[On one of the most important meetings in human history]​
• Genesis [On Creation, itºs motives and consequences]
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[Von Acturus]

Hey everyone, I'm returning from my real life-dictated hiatus, and got the urge to write something again. However, since there's always the possibility that I might have to take extended breaks once the summer ends, I've turned to short stories.

These small pieces of writing will be either about things that happened in my stellaris games or just stories about some event chain or stellaris phenomenon (like the leviathans or the ancient fortress or the khan). I hope you like them and I welcome all feedback and comments!

The first story, Price of Happiness, is my take on C.A.R.E. When we find it in game, it is a planet-spanning supercomputer fighting a loosing battle against a ferrophage. It is elusive about it's past, but talks about corpo-states and the not-so-accidental exctinction of it's makers. This is how I imagine it's story.

 

[Nikolai]

The first story, Price of Happiness, is my take on C.A.R.E. When we find it in game, it is a planet-spanning supercomputer fighting a loosing battle against a ferrophage. It is elusive about it's past, but talks about corpo-states and the not-so-accidental exctinction of it's makers. This is how I imagine it's story.

I loved it! I did not expect the ending before it came. Kudos!

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Another one who didn't see the twist coming here, well done.

 

[HistoryDude]

More @Von Acturus are always good!

It's good. I thought it was a megacorp for most of the post...

Mars should be an interesting spot to start an empire, but I have a feeling that's not where this is going.

 

[Nikolai]

Mars should be an interesting spot to start an empire, but I have a feeling that's not where this is going.

I think this short story is over and first of many.

 

[Macavity116]

The sudden appearance of C.A.R.E caught me off-guard. Now that I think about it, we never did get a satisfactory explanation for that thing in-game, did we? This short filled in the blanks in a way that feels like we found these adverts in an archeological dig site.

 

[El Pip]

Given the subject matter that was surprisingly fun, CARE was indeed a twist and I appreciate the way they stick to the proper values of X-Human - selling items of questionable utility in a seemingly constant sale.

 

[Rensslaer]

@Von Acturus - I'm in on the ground floor for this one. Usually highly recommended stories are well underway before I get to them.

I've not played Stellaris enough (or perhaps don't have the right add-ons) to have seen this CARE event.

This twist reminds me of The Martian Chronicles movie I saw as a kid. Not sure of your age or whether this was intentional. There is of course the Ray Bradbury book as well but the movie impressed itself on my consciousness more effectively.

Rensslaer

 

[Von Acturus]

I loved it! I did not expect the ending before it came. Kudos!

Another one who didn't see the twist coming here, well done.

Thank you both! Great to have you both as readers. I'm now catching up with both of your AARs and so far having a great time!

More @Von Acturus are always good!

It's good. I thought it was a megacorp for most of the post...

Thank you! Yeah, even CARE is very MegaCorp inspired despite the eventual demise of it's makers.

Mars should be an interesting spot to start an empire, but I have a feeling that's not where this is going.

I think this short story is over and first of many.

It would indeed! This story is indeed over, but I may write another in this universe if I get a good, fitting ideas.

The sudden appearance of C.A.R.E caught me off-guard. Now that I think about it, we never did get a satisfactory explanation for that thing in-game, did we? This short filled in the blanks in a way that feels like we found these adverts in an archeological dig site.

Welcome @Macavity116 !! CARE is one of my favourite events because of it's slightly passive agressive, shady nature (and in game benefits!) as well as the Corporo-state context. And the dig site entry format is great for short stories!

Given the subject matter that was surprisingly fun, CARE was indeed a twist and I appreciate the way they stick to the proper values of X-Human - selling items of questionable utility in a seemingly constant sale.

Welcome and thank you, @El Pip ! My view is that machines built by humans to pander to human taste and deal with human minds will certainly carry over at least some human traits. Glad you spotted the constant sale! That was inspired by a store in my town which, like many others the whole world round, sells hilariously expensive stuff always at half the price so they can claim to be always "on sale".

@Von Acturus - I'm in on the ground floor for this one. Usually highly recommended stories are well underway before I get to them.

I've not played Stellaris enough (or perhaps don't have the right add-ons) to have seen this CARE event.

This twist reminds me of The Martian Chronicles movie I saw as a kid. Not sure of your age or whether this was intentional. There is of course the Ray Bradbury book as well but the movie impressed itself on my consciousness more effectively.

Rensslaer

I think CARE is from Ancient Relics DLC, events and digs are maybe my favourite part of stellaris, so I'll obviously highly recommend that DLC for the great stellaris experience.

Oh, I've never seen the movie, but now it's definitely going on my to-watch list!

 

[Rensslaer]

I don't know that I would recommend it exactly. Like most early sci-fi it was pretty campy and the special effects were meh.

Rensslaer

 

[CBR JGWRR]

Thank you both! Great to have you both as readers. I'm now catching up with both of your AARs and so far having a great time!

I'm glad you are, and I am looking forward to your next story.

 

[The Kingmaker]

@Von Acturus: Since my friend Nikolai has endorsed your work, I thought I'd check it out. I was not disappointed -- you have an intriguing premise here with a clever plot twist. Well done! I'm excited to see where you take this next!

 

[Revan86]

@Von Acturus, wonderful start to this AAR. I'm really digging the doomed-world dystopia vibe; I have this mental image of the voice of CARE in my head as something of a mix between GLaDOS and SHODAN, with overtones of Ju Dee from A:tLA thrown in for good measure. The ending is near-future SFnal black humour at its very finest. Well done indeed.

 

[Von Acturus]

@Von Acturus: Since my friend Nikolai has endorsed your work, I thought I'd check it out. I was not disappointed -- you have an intriguing premise here with a clever plot twist. Well done! I'm excited to see where you take this next!

Thank you and welcome aboard!

@Von Acturus, wonderful start to this AAR. I'm really digging the doomed-world dystopia vibe; I have this mental image of the voice of CARE in my head as something of a mix between GLaDOS and SHODAN, with overtones of Ju Dee from A:tLA thrown in for good measure. The ending is near-future SFnal black humour at its very finest. Well done indeed.

Thank you! I didn't know any of those characters, but after a bit of reading I think that'd fit perfectly.

 

[Von Acturus]

Spoiler: Author's Note

This story was inspired by a very annoying episode when I, as the Galactic Emperor, lost a Juggernaut crucial to the war effort because as it was passing through a neutral nation, said nation decided to close it's borders, making it go MIA for a couple of years during which the war took a turn for the worse.

Epic of Gilgamesh

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The Gilgamesh, pride of the Grand Fleet, was given the most advanced navigational systems that engineers could devise, the most powerful guns the state’s industries could produce and the bravest crew the nation could muster. It was loaded with weapons, ammunition, rations and all kinds of war supplies with which it would revitalize the war effort and push back the alien.

After years of preparation, at last it departed, bathed in pride and admiration, and readied it’s systems to make the hyperspace jump that would take it to the front.

It’s crew, five hundred thousands strong, watched proudly as it smoothly slipped into hyperspace.

And, moments later, the whole crew felt the ship collapse back with a thunderous explosion into real space, one hundred light years from their home. Many brave soldiers fell then and there, caught in the explosion that had ruptured the massive Basov-Bechert Drive or killed by one of the millions of pieces of debris that tore through the ship at near light speed.

The Gilgamesh, however, survived. It’s central computer took over from the dead captain and the Gilgamesh engaged it’s fission drives. It’s new destination, the alien capital. It’s mission the same as before: destroy the enemy, win the war.

Inside, the thousands of survivors despaired. With meagre rations, the prospect of coming home again rendered an impossible dream, and a quarter of their comrades dead, morale crumbled and solidarity dissipated into frustration and resentment.

For the first month the generals managed to keep the order, using both the carrot and the stick. But, eventually, one division revolted. Then, everything came tumbling down. Mutinies broke out. Entire battalions rioted, hoarding rations, food replicators and weapons and barricading themselves in their sections of the ship. Other divisions launched predatory raids, pillaging rations from the smouldering corpses of their former comrades.

The Gilgamesh, however, kept going undeterred. For a month, then a year, then a decade it travelled thus, single mindedly driven by the sole purpose of bringing death to the enemies of mankind. It cut off entire parts of the ship it deemed superfluous, recycled and cannibalized systems it judged irrelevant, and diverted all power it could muster to it’s core and engines.

Inside, the warring crew adapted. First they enhanced their eyes with artificial implants so they could see better and fight better in the now dimly lit corridors. Then they replaced them altogether once the Gilgamesh cut off internal light completely.

Then they replaced their lungs with artificial ones and coated their skin with nanobot goo to keep them alive if they fell into the vacuum, an increasingly common occurrence now that the Gilgamesh was sacrificing it’s crew areas to lessen it’s weight.

Then, as the decades, then centuries passed and the scourge of interstellar radiation made it’s effects fully clear, tearing through their DNA and producing a range of debilitating and prejudicial mutations, they gradually replaced their body parts with machinery, first by using nano-bots to take kill cancerous growths and substitute malformed cell tissue, then by replacing whole arms and legs with mechanical appendages.

Centuries passed and eventually the last ration pack was eaten and the last food replicator gave out. But, still, the inhabitants of the Gilgamesh adapted, replacing their mouths and digestive tracts with energy-sucking contraptions with which they preyed upon the electric cables and generators of the Gilgamesh.

They Gilgamesh was half way through it’s long expedition when the tribes inside finally turned away from their large and inefficient biological brains, having grown to delegate more and more basic functions to small, energy-efficient implants. They linked these implants to the ship’s central computer and merged what was left of their memories and higher thought processes with it, freeing their own individual processors to manage only the most basic of questions: how to survive until tomorrow.

And as the ship’s internal communications began to fail, these cybernetic critters turned into messengers, bringing commands from one end of the ship to the other, finally turned into extensions of the ship they so long had inhabited and evolved alongside.

And at last, the Day arrived.

Two thousand years after the end of the Great Galactic War, the Gilgamesh arrived on the star system it’s charts said was the centre of the aliens’ vast empire. It powered up it’s sensors and scanned the system, peering through every planet, every moon and every asteroid until it found it’s target.

And on the third planet it found them. Fickle, unnatural energy spikes, the mark of a civilization. The mark of the enemy.

On the third planet, the few thousands who remained, encamped atop the ruins of their once mighty cities or tending to the ravaged fields of the countryside, looked to the sky in awe when the lights appeared.

The lights grew brighter and brighter until, with a silent flash, sky itself turned into a burning, shinning pyre. And then, darkness.

The Gilgamesh activated all of it’s sensors one last time to confirm that no signs of life remained, and that it’s mission had been thoroughly completed. Then, it’s last power reserves almost depleted, it deactivated all remaining systems and allowed the planet’s gravity to pull it in.

Inside, the skittering creatures that had once been it’s crew felt a vague feeling which none could classify. It was not hunger, or pain or fear, it couldn’t be touched or seen. It was something deeper, and almost pleasant to feel. Something greater, beyond the everyday struggle for survival. And in those final moments, they could almost pretend they were still human.​

 

[The Kingmaker]

As a fan of all things Mesopotamian, I heartily approve of a ship named the Gilgamesh.

 

[El Pip]

An epic indeed, not in length but in scope. Certainly a harsh warning about the dangers of AI, though the main fault of the AI's actions was the all too human failing of being obsessed with the one job in front of you and never taking the step back to think about what the actual objective is.

Above all though I just feel sorry for what remains of the crew, generations of struggle and sacrificing everything they were all for nought.

 

[CBR JGWRR]

I get the impression they just wasted the wrong planet.

 

[HistoryDude]

The poor crew! The Gilgamesh is way too single-minded.... and that's probably a war crime.

Not entirely sure why they didn't expect things to go wrong when they named it that since Gilgamesh is famous for failing to find actual immortality and being memorable. I guess this is memorable... but it's still an utter failure.

That was probably too much analysis.