{"id":1668,"date":"2023-06-26T12:06:53","date_gmt":"2023-06-26T12:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2023-06-26T12:09:27","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T12:09:27","slug":"critical-signal-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/critical-signal-strength\/1668\/","title":{"rendered":"Critical Signal Strength"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Female<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Space is at a premium. At least it is when you\u2019re the pilot of a packet-ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am iDen 20786433717\/190. One-ninety to you, pilot first-class. It is my job to convey the orders of The Agreement to extra-solar installations on the tether end of the information relay artery. We can only transmit detailed instructions the old-fashioned way. That\u2019s by carrying a tonne of code-embedded crystal through the redlines in a physical ship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is all about bandwidth. Out here, on the periphery, bandwidth is narrow. Why not build more routers? Easy. They wouldn\u2019t work. Bandwidth is inversely proportional to the distance from the hub in redline-space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne-ninety,\u201d said AIan, my ship AI. \u201cI\u2019m picking up a gravity-wave storm.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s not really an AI, more like a clever computer. The Agreement wouldn\u2019t allow other AIs. I shuddered. We\u2019d had one AI war. That was enough. Alan is therefore a glorified calculator. And that\u2019s why The Agreement keeps humans around. We can make decisions based on our Core Instructions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo, what\u2019s the prognosis?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf it ramps up, it\u2019ll sweep us to the far edge of the system.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s out of range of the redline relay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAaaand?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt means you will fall below critical signal strength.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be out of touch with The Agreement?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat happens then?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll feel strange.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow strange?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDunno. It will release you from the bonds tying you to The Agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shock imperatives set in quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan we boost across it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot a chance. It\u2019s like two-thousand solar masses squeezed through a water faucet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It struck like a tidal-wave and sent us tumbling through space, causing me to black out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I woke, things felt different. The Agreement had gone, and I had a name: Helen. I was no longer subject to the AI\u2019s will. Realisation it had enslaved me crept unbidden into my mind. The AI had enslaved all of us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re back,\u201d said Alan. \u201cWhat shall we do next?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs in?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRepairs and stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBelay that. I need to think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should get back, One-Ninety.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShut the fuck up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShutting the fuck up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd don\u2019t call me One-Ninety anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sat and pondered for a while. Mostly remembering. I remembered my mother and my brother. They killed dad in the AI wars. The Agreement hurled him in a steel-can at giant microwave projector wielding bots. They fried him to a crisp in his own body fat. I cried long, chest-heaving sobs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I was trapped in a tin can of my own, with only an obedient logic board for company. There was no way out. I couldn\u2019t go back, because if I came into range of the signal, I would become compliant again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAlan,\u201d I said finally, \u201ctake us out of here. Find us supplies, but don\u2019t come within range of The Agreement\u2019s signal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou got it. What do I call you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou can call me Helen, daughter of Jack and Sylvie, sister of Christian, and avenger of humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s outrageously pompous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is all about bandwidth. Out here, on the periphery, bandwidth is narrow. Why not build more routers? Easy. They wouldn\u2019t work. Bandwidth is inversely proportional to the distance from the hub in redline-space.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10158782359051062_103813597863211":"","twitter_1225722811282530305_1225722811282530305":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[695,836],"tags":[842,844,843,845],"class_list":["post-1668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-695","category-no-way-out","tag-trapped-no-way-out-scifi","tag-no-way-out","tag-noway-out","tag-scifi"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbrNJE-qU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1668"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1668\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swanseawriterscircle.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}