Chapter 14 - Recording No. 82: The Oracle Project
Year 2470. Unknown Underground Bunker On Earth
Click
“We’re recording.”
“So. What’s the current status of the Oracle Project.”
Dr. Frtiz leaned back in his chair, “My son, Gaius, has helped a lot with testing the first Oracle which we have named Simulator. He will explain the current issues with the Oracle Project.”
The councilor clasped her hands together, “We’re making Oracle for the Republic. Yes?”
“Yes. This technology will remain a secret until the rebellion breaks out.”
The councilor nodded, “Good. I’m sick of this commonwealth.”
Dr. Fritz smirked, “Really? I wasn’t expecting that from a hypocrite like you.”
The councilor waved their hand, “Whatever. Enough with stupid politics. Get on with the details. This project is vital for the Republic.”
“Stupid? Sure. We can play that story today.”
The councilor gave Dr. Fritz a death stare before sighing, “Get on with the presentation.”
Dr. Fritz shrugged and looked over at the young man standing in the middle of the room, “You got it all setup?”
Gaius nodded, “Yup. All setup.”
The councilor leaned back in their chair, “So, what is this Oracle Project? Funding was secured for this before I entered the inner circle.”
Gaius brought up a slide, “So throughout the past few centuries we have studied what makes our universe work. From many centuries of work many of us believed that it would be possible to perfectly predict the future.”
“Perfectly predict the future. In what way?”
Gaius typed in a command to a console on his tablet, “I have just enabled a simulation of every particle in this room. When I click this button you’ll be able to see a half second prediction up on the screen.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
Tap
The room looked up at the screen. The councilor opened her mouth, “Whoa.”
“Whoa.”
They suddenly sat up in their chair alarmed, “What? It’s predicting exactly what I’m doing.”
Gaius nodded, “This is the first working prototype from the Oracle Project. We call it simulation.”
“Simulation?”
“Yup. You can very easily trick the simulation if you know it’s a simulation.”
The councilor stared at the screen, “Can you demonstrate?”
“Sure.”
On the screen Gaius suddenly pulled out a pistol and shot a hole through the councilor’s skull. The councilor winced, “Wha- “
“No.”
In Gaius’s hand was his pistol pointed at the ceiling, “I tricked it into thinking I was going to shoot.”
“So… so what does this mean?”
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
Gaius frowned, “It’s not reliable enough for the military. The predictions can be molded too easily using some tricks.”
The councilor blinked, “What’d you do to trick it?”
He grinned as he pointed to his head, “I thought really hard about every muscle fiber I would flex to shoot you.”
“So how does that trick it?”
Gaius shrugged, “There’s something in your brain that alters the automated actions of every cell in your body. The simulator can only scan and pick up the real time results of electric signals in the nerve system.”
“And?”
Gaius paused, “This is proof that humans have free will. Sentience.”
The councilor was extremely confused, “Can you explain this more simply?”
“I think you’ll get it once I explain how it works.”
The councilor frowned, “Alright.”
“So, the scanner system takes every molecule and writes it to the computer. The scanner makes a full pass through a sector every half second which is why the prediction is delayed by half a second.”
“So, what if something changes in that half second?”
Gaius held his hand up, “You’ll get it. The initial scan takes the longest because it’s creating a fresh simulation. From there, it starts to simulate the whole scanned environment and updates the image as real data streams into it.”
The councilor sighed, “So what is this whole thing about free will?”
Gaius pointed at the screen, “The simulation works perfectly. Look here.”
Gaius pulled out a handful of dice. The councilor frowned, “You’re telling me the simulator can predict the dice? You can’t be serious.”
With a little smile Gaius put a paper cup over the dice and shook it vigorously. He pointed up to the screen. A four, two, one, and five.
The councilor stared at the table as Gaius removed the cup revealing a four, two, one, and five. The counselor stared at the dice, “So… what?”
Gaius pointed at the dice, “The simulation is perfect. But there is something about simulating people that breaks it. Why?”
The councilor leaned back in their chair, “Sentience. The only theory you came up with is sentience.“
“It’s not a theory. It’s just a conjecture.”
The councilor groaned, “You scientists and your need to be right about everything. You get the idea.”
Gaius blinked, “What?”
The councilor buried her face in her hands holding back a sigh, “Never mind. So what is this sentience thing?”
“Well, there’s a lot of nuances to this. Some places like the poles have weird behavior too.”
The councilor looked alarmed, “Are you claiming the Earth is sentient?”
Gaius laughed, “There’s no way that could be true. We’ve labeled the poles as Anomaly number one. The first phenomenon the Oracle Project can’t predict.”
“What if. Just what if, Earth is sentient?”
Gaius scoffed at the idea, “Then we’re kind of screwed aren’t we? We’ve been living and digging up its flesh for millennia.”
“And what if it’s not just Earth that is sentient?”
“What do you mean?”
The councilor’s eyes widened, “Do you think humans are really that special?”
“Well… yes? Isn’t it obvious?”
The councilor stared into Gaius’s eyes, “Are we really that special? Tell me.”
Gaius paused, “Well, no. I guess not. But kind of yes?”
The councilor shook their head, “Okay so let’s get back to the topic. What do you need to finish the Oracle Project?”
“We need to understand sentience. Understand the things that change the simulation.”
“I still don’t really get how this will thing works. In the demonstration earlier, I heard you scream the word no. What were you doing?”
Gaius pointed to his pistol, “I planned out every movement needed to shoot and started doing the action. I then imagined myself from a third person point of view and told my brain to stop what it was doing.”
The councilor thought for a second, “So you commanded your brain to think a certain way? Am I getting this right?”
“Yes.”
“By any chance, could we use this to… rehabilitate people?”
Gaius stood there blinking and glanced at Dr. Fritz.
Dr. Fritz frowned, “I think that’s crossing a line councilor.”
“Crossing a line? How many lines have you and your son already crossed? What’s the harm in crossing one more! For the sake of the new Republic! Do you really want to live in this commonwealth as mere researchers?”
“Councilor-“
“Oh don’t give me any of that polite nonsense Patrik. I know what you want. You know what I want. I want this commonwealth to end. I only established it to stop the third war on Luna. We could’ve just made a big alliance but no! You told me we had to set up something permanent! Oh man.”
“Hey-“
The councilor shook her head as she glared at Dr. Fritz, “Patrik, don’t say anything or I’ll blow up. Just let me be. Ugh. Why the hell did I have to become the leader? You know that one of the others would have gladly taken the position.”
“It’s because you-“
“Yeah yeah. It’s because I don’t want the position that makes me a good person to put in the council. But like... why not Rob or Kelly or literally anyone else?”
Dr. Fritz shook his head, “Rob got shot on Luna, Kelly is busy with her marriage, and everyone else is busy. You were doing nothing.”
“Nothing? You call holding Luna doing nothing? I hate Earth. This stupid gravity holding me down.”
Dr. Fritz made a small frowned, “Aria… just bear with it for a few more years.”
She glared at Dr. Fritz, “So? Who will replace my position?”
Dr. Fritz looked at Gaius who was playing with the camera.
“Him?”
“Well. He’s the only one that matches your qualifications.”
She sighed, “That idiot would never be able to do it.”
Dr. Fritz smiled, “Maybe you and Gaius should help each other.”
Aria frowned, “So first you dump a useless government position on me and then you ask me to help your son. This really sounds like some abuse of authority.”
Gaius looked up, “Hey. This thing is still recording.”
Both Aria and Dr. Fritz stared at Gaius, “Turn it off!”
“Wha?”
“What’re you doing you idio-“
Yo. So... yeah. this chapter is uh... a real big one. Everything comes together in this one I guess. Many recordings from now on will either be on the discovery process of ether or a fight scene. The purpose of recording chapters is for a more organic way of showing the world. Hopefully it's effective. On another note, the shouts from others are starting to come in so if you're new here welcome to my story! We get to some wacky crap around here. Though, this story will be more coherent than my usual.
More importantly, this is the last chapter of the 2 week launch window. The schedule from now on will be 1 chapter a week on sundays starting from tomorrow. My will get 2 chapters a week on Sundays and Saturdays. The release time of chapters on patreon will vary depending on when stuff happens but the release times for royal road will always be 13:37 US central because it's a funny time. I was considering a more funny number like 2:42 or something but meh. the middle of the day seems more reasonable.
Oh and I have a website. Check it out if you're interested. If not, simply following and commenting would be epic. Much epicness. Very epic. Uh. Yeah. That's it. Bye. Oh, next chapter is Chapter 15 - Sense
