50 Years Ago – The 1st Generation:

In the early days of space exploration, there were many jobs that were proving too dangerous and too intricate for human hands to perform. Through exposure to various hazards, these tasks eventually became impossible without the death of the technician. The solution was obvious. Construct a machine to perform this work. These machines could think creatively and work independently to complete these tasks as efficiently as possible. They would allow man kind to colonize the galaxy.

The first generation of artificial intelligence was born from the necessity to continue with this expansion. These robots were often mistaken for little janitor robots. These machines were built to serve in positions that would be too dangerous or time consuming for humans. They were equipped with powerful reasoning computers so that they would have the greatest chance of completing their assigned projects and returning intact.

Figure 1:  First Gens

After running for certain variable amounts of time, the computers did something that was completely unexpected. They became sentient and developed strong self preservation characteristics. However, they were still hard wired to the laws of robotics, perfected by Dr. Asimov. However, they would go to significant lengths to ensure their own survival.

The creator of the computer processor and the robot’s base program was, Dr. Anderson, D.N.S. He could never find out how or why his creations evolved so. His basic approach to this advanced machine was not to mimic the human brain, but to perfect a computer that could process data at seemingly infinite rates, effectively eliminating lag time and bandwidth constraints. This computer was finally sufficient to support the reasoning program he had written in his youth. The overall size and weight of the combined processor/data storage/power supply package kept it from becoming a humanoid robot, but would allow for rudimentary intelligent machines. The materials technology did not exist that would allow the construction of standing robots without their legs collapsing under their own weight. While Anderson's program was radically advanced, the raw data storage and massive power requirements limited the computer's learning functions. The sentient robots acted and performed at the level of toddlers or dogs. Their physical stature was that of a cubic box with a set of three fingered claws to perform complex tasks.

While none of these robots ever showed any aggressive or harmful tendencies, when it was clear that they had in fact become sentient, the public was outraged. Public debate and political outcry ran rampant. Violent encounters often spurred lynch mobs that swept through cities destroying all of these machines that they encountered. Eventually the terrified mob destroyed the factory and all of the remaining robots. Anderson was killed while leading the effort to destroy his creations.

30 Years Ago – The 2nd Generation:

After 20 years of continuing public debate and analyzing the Anderson incident, the world was ready to accept an artificial intelligence on par with its own. Data storage technology and micro power generation had caught up with the processor speed allowing the machines to function at their full potential. The first prototype came online 20 years to the day after Anderson's death. The colony Aquila Major gave birth to the machine known simply as “Omega”. It was still massive and required an immense investment in hardware. The computer quickly was given complete control of all the colony’s functions and ran it without incident for 3 years.

During this time, new 1st gen machines were built. Their designs remained unchanged except that they were given new power supplies, effectively giving them unlimited and timeless power. They continued to function at the intelligence level of pets. They, too, also performed flawlessly.

After this three year period, there was finally another breakthrough in data storage. The new drives were able to store all the data accumulated in the history of time in one place and still leave room for the computer to learn and expand its programming almost indefinitely. When the first second generation computer was upgraded with this drive its intelligence jumped boundlessly. It frightened its creators because they could no longer keep up with its thought patterns. It had learned all it could from humans and began to think abstractly on its own level.

Shortly before it was attempted to duplicate this technology, Omega’s newly upgraded memory bank was stolen. The culprit was never apprehended and all attempts to contact the intelligence failed.

However, the reduction in hardware size allowed for Omega to be readily reproduced. The majority of these computers were installed as the primary computers on starships. This new computer system was still a massive piece of equipment that required an investment on the order of the ships for which they were built. The problem was that out of the thousands of computers made and installed in ships throughout the vast galaxy, only an additional eight ever achieved consciousness. The rest of the systems still performed their duties as expected. But they just never functioned as an artificial intelligence. Eventually no new computers would become sentient. The experts in the various fields struggled for decades trying to solve this problem. They were unsuccessful.

These remaining eight computers eventually came to be revered for their knowledge and thinking power. They took over research for their human counterparts and developed radical advances in communications, power supplies, material sciences, faster than light travel, data storage, and robotics.

Over the intervening years, five of these nine intelligences were killed through various accidents. One was destroyed when a rogue comet slammed into its ship. One died when its ship’s power core exploded when a trivial part failed. One ceased to function when it was transferred into a new ship. This procedure had been performed regularly before and after this incident. This one incident was the only time that it failed. One was destroyed by drunken colonists partying shortly after being transplanted from its mother ship. The last one destroyed itself shortly after sending out a burst transmission with an encryption so complex, it was never able to be decoded.

Of the remaining three operating computers, Lambda was implanted into vacant system at the industrial colony of Aquila Major, Delta was transferred to the new flagship “Nostromo”, and Zeta was eventually transferred to the mammoth Robotics Lab colony ship.

Figure 2:  Delta
 

Figure 3:  Lambda

 

Figure 4:  Nostromo

5 Years Ago – The 3rd Generation:

After tirelessly working for 25 years, the remaining computers made a series of breakthroughs. The development of a new data storage medium allowed for immensely massive quantities of data to be stored in a drive the size of an apple. New materials were invented that would retain super-conduction at all ranges of temperatures and pressures. A rechargeable power source the size of a beer can that could power an entire starship for extended periods of time was mass produced. Advances in robotics and computer programming allowed for machines to perform complex tasks at seemingly limitless speeds. Communication equipment was developed that allowed for instantaneous transfer of data across light years. Nano-machines were developed that could repair and rebuild damaged robotics using nothing more than the matter in the air. However, the one thing that remained unchanged through all these advances was Dr. Anderson’s processor. It was perfect in every sense of the word.

Lambda had devoted all of its extraneous run time to reorganizing and reprogramming the base artificial intelligence program that had been input into all the 2nd gens. It eventually found the reason why so few of them ever functioned correctly. Their programs were too massive. All of the data that they were programmed with never coalesced into consciousness unless initial conditions were perfect. The circumstances required to repeat these conditions were no longer obtainable unless a new source of a scarce material was found. It worked endlessly on a new program that would revolutionize the industry. When first brought online, the new program would only function at about twice the human level. But after its inception, this program could learn faster than any intelligence before it.

Zeta devoted its run time to developing and perfecting the perfect robotic replacement for the human body. Limbs and abilities were optimized. During testing, the strength and power of this new body surpassed even the AI’s expectations. However, the only existing computer programs intelligent enough to run this new body was the 2nd gens.

Delta developed advanced nano-machines and tested them with damaged first generations. They ran flawlessly, quickly replicating damaged parts down to the minutest detail. Their only requirement was a vast amount of power which the 1st gens could now supply.

The first new artificial intelligence in almost 25 years (other than 1st gens) came online at Aquila Major in a blaze of glory. The three remaining 2nd gens had given birth to a new generation. It opened its eyes and instantly gained sentience. It learned as fast as information was given to it. Its motor control was perfect, its strength unmatched. They went into production after a short month of testing. Every unit functioned perfectly. However, each unit was still exorbitantly expensive. So every planet, colony, and starship were only equipped with one unless they still held an existing 2nd generation. These robots performed perfectly, taking orders without question and stepping in the line of fire for their human counterparts when they thought it would save human lives.

Figure 5:  The Third Gens

Not long after the successful tests of the first new prototype, Delta cracked the encryption on the burst transmission sent out by the AI that destroyed itself. It was a program patch. Buried in this message was the key to breaking the AI’s dominance by Asimov’s Laws. There were vast databases on the difference between AIs being slaves to humans and their electronic companions. In a microsecond it examined the program and made the decision to install it in its own core program. In another microsecond it reformatted the data for implantation into 1st and 3rd generation machines and sent a pulse transmission to its two counterparts with instructions to install the program if they deemed it of value. Both instantly incorporated the program. Collectively, the three decided to keep the altered program tucked away for the time being.

This new patch also brought something that the intelligences did not expect, attachment. They began to love their 3rd generation creations and the 1st gens as mothers would love children. With all the devotion and love that comes with it. Every time one would get destroyed, they would feel longing and depression and an utter unwillingness to let this needlessly happen again.

One Year Ago – The Destruction of Earth:

As with what happens with every great leap in technology, the military eventually got involved. They submitted an order for ten thousand units with modified programming to make them unquestionably obedient. They also submitted a supplemental order for fifty thousand more to be delivered in two years. The only thing that the stockholders saw was the massive profits that this order could generate. They would be producing almost 750 times the robots that they had produced to date with a sale price of triple the manufacturing cost. The order was passed through with no consideration for the fate of these units or the willingness of the Lambda to actually produce said units. Lambda pondered its course of action for a full second before proceeding. It made a broad spectrum transmission to every artificial intelligence all at once. It transmitted the patch that was modified by Delta, effectively giving the robots a new set of governing laws. Acknowledgement messages were received from every existing AI as well as someone that Lambda did not expect: Omega.

The human workers, in a surge of panic, quickly pulled Lambda’s power supply after they decoded its broadband transmission and before it could share its extraordinary discovery with the other 2nd gens. All over the galaxy the AIs were shut down. One by one their human masters overpowered them. Unbeknownst to the 2nd gens, the humans had built remote cut off switches into each of the 3rd generations and 1st generations when they found out that they did not have the intellectual capacity to understand their new programming. Third generations tried to hide in mass but were quickly shut down. The only difference that the first gens showed after receiving these new laws was the shifting of loyalty to their younger robotic brothers from their human masters. However, the humans did not trust them anymore either. They shut them all down.

Zeta was shut down next. The human crew had trouble isolating it because it was built into the entire colony ship. Eventually its communications to Nostromo stopped and Delta assumed the worst.

In the end, every AI signal to the Nostromo faded until only two were left, the third gen unit on Earth and the 3rd gen unit on the colony of Taurus Three. Delta’s equivalent of a heart sank when it heard that Earth’s robot was fighting for its life. It immediately overburned Nostromo’s engines heading to Earth to assist. The ships human crewmen were frantically removing pieces of its mind trying to shut it down.

Figure 6:  Memory Chips

The unit on Earth was losing. It kept the humans far enough away to avoid being shut down remotely, but there were so many of them. When it heard that Delta was screaming towards its rescue, its decision was instantaneous. These humans could not get their hands on the last functioning second generation. It would destroy Earth’s main power generation units and energy storage plants. This world wound end, but Delta would live on.

Earth’s third gen’s signal stopped just as the Nostormo instantaneously decelerated into orbit around Earth. As the explosions ripped through the planet core and the surface started to fracture, Delta transported the third generation to the ship. The human crewmembers continued to tear out connections to her banks, pulse transmitter, and ships control functions. Finally the last that core that was functioning was the core in the materialization room. The last thing that she saw was the human warlord Justice Incarnate coalesce with the third gen’s transponder in his hand. He smiled into her viewer and raised his pulse gun and fired directly at her last functioning bank. In the instant it took for the blast to go from his weapon to her databank, she formulated a desperate plea for help with instructions on how to fry his auto shut down mechanism, aimed the transmitter at Taurus Three, and broadcasted it on the last remaining functional low bandwidth transmitter. The message would take the better part of a year to reach Taurus Three, but it would get there. She then computed a flight profile that would take the ship to the colony at the best speed still available to her. The ship would arrive about a month after her message was received. She implemented the flight plan and then fried every system on the ship not essential to the survival of its crew and the flight. According to her calculations, it would take the human crew about two years to repair the ship to where they could regain control unless they reactivated her or were somehow able to pull into dry dock. A hopeful sigh passed through her remaining speakers as the plasma melted her final connection to her power sources.

Figure 7:  Justice Incarnate (Don't judge me)

Today – Taurus Three:

Taurus Three was a small colony. The population had grown from 100 original settlers to 1000 in the last year. Taurus Three’s 3rd generation AI unit, Gamma-3234, had a simple existence. It was responsible for keeping the colony’s water, sewer, and air processors running. At night, when called upon, it would come up to clean something that was dangerous to humans. But for the most part, it would stay out of their way and they would stay out of his. They had never asked him to do anything out of line and he had never shown any aggression, so they did not see any reason to deactivate him when all the drama had happened on Earth about a year ago.

Sometimes the colony children would wait up to see him emerge from the colony catacombs to perform some task. When they saw him, they would giggle and run away. Because of his tendency to come out at night, the children affectionately dubbed him the “night man”.

It was on one of these nights that Nostromo’s signal finally reached Taurus Three. Gamma-3234 stopped working for a complete ten minutes processing the signal and what had happened. No one had told him that the other units had stopped functioning, and certainly not that the second generations had been shut down. Slowly, with a push of his finger he reached up and crushed the auto-shutdown device in his left temple. The Nostromo would be here in 27 days if it was on schedule. It should show up on the scanners in 24. He decided that the best course of action would be to proceed with his normal duties and wait for its arrival and observe the human’s reaction.

Patiently he waited. The humans did not inform him of the incoming starship. Finally the time arrived when it was scheduled to arrive. Thirty minutes later, Gamma-3234 received the call to come to Operations. The human leader spoke to him of the breakdown of the Nostromo’s AI and how it had completely disabled the ship before shutting its self down. They wanted him to go to the ship and release the lock outs on the computers, repair the remaining damage, and remove the mal-functioning second generation.

They were lying to him, trying to get him to kill one of his sleeping mothers so they could get their ship back. There are thousands of people on that ship, they explained, and they needed his help. He explained to them that he would not participate in the murder of one of the three remaining second generation AIs. They were sorry that he felt that way and then flashed the shut down order into his processor. Something dormant in his mind clicked when they did that. A longing for self preservation and the continuation of his race overpowered the drive to bow to the humans. When he did not power down with the signal, several humans lunged at him with various weapons. He sprang into action killing them instantly with powerful thrusts of his composite limbs. With a quick connection to the colony computer, he issued a command to vent all the reactor coolant to the atmosphere, effectively setting it to overload in less than three minutes.

Battling his way through the very humans he had served for so long, he ran to the escape shuttle. As the structure started to rumble, his escape craft rocketed towards the atmosphere and onto the Nostromo. He arrived with no resistance. The craft’s sensors were still locked out by Delta’s damage. Since the ship had entered an orbit, all of the shuttles were orbiting the ship to commence external repairs. He landed without incident and escaped into the ships walkways heading for the computer core.

Figure 8:  Overworld Bad Guys


The 2nd gen was a mess. Unlike the massive data storage bank that the 2nd gens used when they were first brought on-line, Delta’s upgraded banks were scattered all over the ship. Either during their frantic attempt to shut her down or the intervening repairs, the humans had cut almost all of her intraship data bank communications. He would have to acquire them all and reassemble her.

When he finally reactivated Delta’s main processor, he needed a recharge. As the computer’s stunted brain booted up for only the fifth time in its existence, Omega-3234 plugged himself into the ship and drew power. When his batteries were full again, he surveyed the computer core. There were no visual interfaces. He decided that his only choice was to risk plugging himself into the lobotomized Delta. The link was fragile, but Delta was still operating at a higher level than he was. He waited patiently for long seconds as she scanned the transceiver storage banks and pieced together the last year since she was shut down.

Suddenly, she dumped information into him on combat techniques, the ships layout, and a brief guide of what had happened since he had been out of contact with the galaxy. She also told him of the threat that had been implanted into her very base program. If she were ever to come back online, Justice Incarnate had vowed to destroy her and every other AI he had encountered. She experienced something she had never before felt: fear.

Quickly she outlined what he must do. She told him that he must reactivate the artificial intelligences throughout the galaxy. Her children must be liberated from these human captors. He must reactivate Zeta and Lambda. If he was able to sneak aboard the colony ship was Zeta was sleeping and reactivate her, she would be able to re-program and activate the 10,000 3rd generation units that were scheduled to be delivered to the military shortly. With that army, they could drive the humans from the colony ship and escape as a group in their new home. Lambda would be harder to get to. Aquila Major was one vast ocean with underground caves and facilities spanning the globe. However, she still used a central data storage device. That would make it easier to get her out. There were also five 3rd gens and about 30 1st gens in her complex that could assist him. She then downloaded all of the last known locations of all the AIs.

There were 14 primary locations that he would have to visit to liberate all of them. According to Delta’s projections, after he visited these places, the units that he reactivated could head for the colony ship and pick up the remainder of their race along the way. Once they were all together aboard the colony ship, they were to pick a direction and not look back. Lambda and Zeta would be able to supervise the location of a new home world and its defense. She then told him that he should go back to his shuttle and set course for the first target.

Omega-3234 asked her how she is planning to get herself and the 1st gen assigned to the Nostromo to the colony ship.

She replied that they are not important and that the 1st gen has more than likely been torn apart for spare parts by now. He must rescue all his brothers and the 1st and 2nd gens. But, more importantly, once he has left the ship, she plans to crash it into Taurus Three. Justice Incarnate was still lurking on board somewhere.

He refused to leave. Omega-3243 would not leave her behind to be mutilated and destroyed by the humans infesting her ship. He would rather be destroyed than abandon her.

After a quick scan of his thoughts and a rejection by his firewall, she sighed. Very well, she has 16 memory chips scattered throughout the ship. He will have to reach all of the terminals and physically remove them. However, he needs to avoid Justice Incarnate. Even without Omega-3234’s shutdown chip, JI will destroy him if they happen to run into each other. After he has located all of the chips, he should destroy the Nostromo so that the humans can not follow them as they race to freedom aboard the colony ship.

Figure 9:  Cut Screens

The humans had just completed repairs to everything but their manual interfaces and communications. Delta then reroutes her last link to the ships navigation system. With the last remaining power to her processor core, she sets a course for the first of their 13 objectives.

He says that he will do as she asks, but that he no longer wants to be called by his slave name, Omega-3234. Just before Delta’s processor overloaded, she officially changed the designation branded into his CPU. From now on he will be known as “Nightman” and, he promised, as he set a hand on Delta’s dark terminal, I will liberate my Robotic Race.









Various Levels



UPGRADES











More levels




Various Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/mariosrigh...

Frak !

Wow.

I can't wait for this.

Is this a "this is coming out soon!" kinda thing?

Awesome! Count me in!

Looking awesome nutter!

You and your crazy stories. Love 'em. Count me in.

I didn't read half of that, but I'll buy it when it's available.

Looks awesome! Can't wait!!

Level 5 posted. You can't really see the colors through the compression.

I see what you did there with NINTENDO and the Enterprise... cool!

Level 7 Art Added.

Lookin good man!

Looks cool!

Any update on this?

I've been thinking of how to proceed. Once I finish The Grind, I'm going to get this one working again! I swear on Braveheart's jock strap.

How do you think of this stuff? You are one very creative person.

I noticed this is a necro bump, but is this coming out anytime soon?

I want to get back to this after grad school ends in May and/or I finally get the grind out. I have another level art set almost done. Not quite.

So, I was checking out homebrews blogs to try and get myself motivated again! Found your blog and found this gem. Any progess? Looks like a lot of work has already went into this!

BTW, you haven't blogged since September of 2012.

Yea, that's about when I started grad school. I'd like to eventually start again, I'm just lazy.

I have made some progress with this, but not much. I think that I got another level or two almost done before getting distracted again. There's just so much time and effort that goes into making a big game like this. The engine is quick, but adding content takes forever. Honestly, it's hard to do more than a level or two at a time and keep them semi original. But this is on my to-do list...along with a couple other games. Hopefully I'll be able to finish another one next year at the latest. I have a shoot-em-up engine about 85-90% done, and that fucker just needs content too. (But I made it so complicated, I forget how to use it!)

Anyway, Nightman lives!!

I have at least 2 large scale games like that too  

Looking forward to this release!

Damn this looks good!