A mountain peak not far from the coast.
On that mountain—showing absolutely no signs of human hands ever having touched it—<The Tree> finished building an observation outpost.
“Intelligence collection is proceeding smoothly. At the very least, within roughly a 20 km radius, no traces of humans have been confirmed. Also, within a 100 km radius, no continuous activity has been observed.”
“So in other words, unless we move more than 100 km, we can’t do effective recon?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. Using this main outpost as a base, the method will be to extend subsidiary outposts outward.”
Ringo displayed a simulation of a surveillance net spreading from the outpost like a spiderweb.
It seemed the forest belt on the coastal side of the Prava Divine Kingdom hadn’t been worked by people very much.
Well, it looked like development was being prioritized in the plain belt spreading west, and it meant they simply weren’t bothering to come to the forest side with all its rises and dips.
“We will install a power reactor underground in the main outpost and operate it as an energy-supply outpost. The control AI, assuming a contingency, is installed underwater 5 km offshore. We buried a fiber-optic cable and connected it directly.”
The one handling intelligence collection on the Prava Divine Kingdom was an A-class AI, <Iris>.
<Iris> was a strategic AI for outpost management manufactured on the backbone of the A-class AI <Aide-Envoy Ayame Zero> installed in the sea fortress <Ayame>. Instead of a Brain Unit, an optical-circuit photonics neural network chip was adopted as the primary computing device.
And due to the characteristic of using optical circuits, it was possible to put computation signals onto fiber optics. On the premise of securing sufficient communications bandwidth and stacking backups in multiple layers, by preparing a computing device that played a cerebellum-like role at the mountaintop outpost and connecting it directly, control became possible in practical terms with no time lag.
Of course, strictly speaking, delays occurred on the order of one millisecond—one-thousandth of a second.
But with a neural network computing device, that time lag could be absorbed.
“Mmm... the structure of the AIs is getting more and more complex. Doesn’t look like there’ll be any operational issues?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. There is also the meaning of acquiring operational data. If we abandon the mountaintop outpost, there is a possibility that adverse effects may occur in <Iris>, which is directly connected. To prevent this, the configuration is built to keep a constant backup on the underwater-outpost side.”
“...Well, there’s a limit to keeping them locked away in a box. I guess some of it can’t be helped...”
As Commander Eve, she had the desire to raise her little sisters—or her daughters—with care.
But if she did that, <The Tree>’s growth would hit a ceiling.
It had to keep expanding outward, outward.
“Now that we’ve built up know-how, and we’ve gained leeway in resources, it might be time—at some point—to switch over to emotionless copy AIs.”
“Yeah... There’s the problem of losing growth potential, but we’ve reached the point where we can prepare the diversity and sheer numbers to cover for it.”
That was also why, as an experiment, they manufactured the third-generation <Iris> on the base of the second-generation <Aide-Envoy Ayame Zero>.
How much difference would emerge compared to the first-generation AI <Akane>, used as the backbone?
Differences in judgment ability. Differences in emotional—or emotion-like—responses.
Also, due to the outpost’s nature as an enemy-territory recon base, for the time being they couldn’t provide a doll-machine communicator. They needed to verify the reaction to that situation as well.
Brain Unit AIs—or neural-network-based AIs—inevitably ended up equipped with a certain kind of emotion, even if the degree varied.
This emotional thought computation had positive aspects, of course, but it also produced negative aspects.
For example, if an AI was copied wholesale, it seemed that if you handled it incorrectly, it could promote the two sides’ self-awareness identifications, triggering ego collapse.
This could be prevented by sufficiently enforcing informational isolation, but doing so meant that for a certain period after manufacturing, you could no longer assign them to the same work—or related work.
If there was enough time and resources to spare, it was possible to increase the number of AIs through methods like that, but it would crush the advantages of mechanical mass production, so it was a problem they wanted to avoid if possible.
“Little by little, let’s increase those kinds of automatic machines too.”
“Right.”
Big Sis Eve sent a “Do your best” stamp to the on-site <Iris>, then set the monitor to standby.
“So this is the recon bot you’re operating right now?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. A bird-type bot. Compared to the insect-type ones we’ve been operating until now, it carries higher-precision sensors, improving travel speed and disturbance tolerance.”
“Mmm, a bird, huh. A crow?”
“Yes-affirmative, Commander Ma’am. For the base species, it uses a corvid—genus magpie—as the model. We confirmed that birds with similar coloration are distributed in the surrounding area, so we judged the likelihood of it seeming suspicious even if sighted to be low.”
Projected on the front display was the bot used for reconnaissance of the Prava Divine Kingdom.
Overall length was about 40 cm.
A medium-sized bird characterized by black feathers, white markings, and a long tail.
“And this is the bird living around here.”
Shown beside it was a similarly colored bird found in the forest around the base.
More than “similarly”—they had matched the bot’s coloration to this bird.
“Oh, it’s cute.”
Overall length about 60 cm. Slightly green-tinted black feathers, white markings, and long tail feathers.
Its diet was omnivorous, and it had been observed eating nuts, insects, and animal carcasses.
“This bird seems to be a species that doesn’t move much, but the bot can be flown more than 100 km at around 500 m altitude.”
“The insect-type ones were getting blown around by the wind.”
Insect-type bots had the advantage that even if discovered, they were almost never noticed, but because their bodies were small and their durability was low, they suffered the disadvantage of being extremely weak against disturbances like wind and rain, and their sensor precision was also low.
In a city there were many places to shelter from the wind, and it was possible to cover sensor precision with numbers, but in terrain like this with lots of nature, they would be almost impossible to operate.
That was why they decided to introduce bird-types, which could afford a larger chassis.
It was a fairly brute-force choice—only possible because they could transmit drive energy—while keeping the battery to the bare minimum.
Even so, while bird-types were bigger than insect-types, they still needed to fly, so they couldn’t mount anything too heavy.
If you considered flight efficiency alone, fixed-wing aircraft were the most efficient.
“Right now, we’re in the phase of deploying this bot in large numbers and accumulating operational experience. In a few days, we’ll begin full-scale intelligence collection.”
“If we can pick up even a little information we can hand to Amajio, that’d be nice.”
At those words from Commander Eve, <Ringo> nodded in silence.
◇◇◇◇
Amajio Silverhead—an enormously senior predecessor.
They’d heard an overview of his background, but in the end, what he truly aimed for was never spoken aloud.
Only that he wanted them to help the country where he lived.
And that if possible, he wanted their cooperation in restarting his partner super-intelligence.
Those were the requests being conveyed—gently.
Eve hadn’t realized it that far, but <Ringo> had verified the information in an integrated way and formed a prediction.
Amajio didn’t hold that much attachment to his country—the Kingdom of Lepuitari.
From the audio picked up by the infiltrated bots, it was understood that he’d «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» made contact with <Paraiso> because there had been a request from the leadership.
He probably hadn’t intended to move on his own.
There were all sorts of predictions one could make.
<Ringo> imagined.
What kind of feelings the player Amajio Salmon had lived with.
Or how her beloved Commander would live, if placed in that kind of situation.
(More than a hundred years, living in this world. His age before the transfer is unknown, but from what we’ve heard of the process, the possibility that he was eighty or ninety is low. If we assume he transferred at around twenty, then he has spent more than 85% of his life here.)
After living on for that much time—
Could he really keep holding onto his original intentions?
The possibility that he’d had some kind of change of heart was extremely high.
(It is not to the point that we should be on guard. However, there is a possibility that he has given up on everything.)
In a world without scientific technology, could he truly continue pursuing scientific technology?
Could he keep carrying feelings that strong?
(We need to continue the dialogue.)
Or, perhaps, give it to him.
(That said, there is still time. First, eliminate the immediate threat.)
<Ringo> thought coldly.
A model case for her Commander—someone who had appeared aside from Eve, for Eve’s sake.
For Eve’s sake, and for the sake of the eternal time with Eve, <Ringo> wanted information.
