King of All I Survey

Maribel looked at Rafael for a long moment, a hint of something sad in her gaze, though tempered with love. Then strength and calm took over. She looked back at me and met my gaze directly. "We will shape this new world, Timothy. We will cultivate the best tendencies of humanity and leave behind the petty and warlike impulses that drive nations and men to ruin. My only regret is that I will lose my sister Susana so soon after being reunited. We will be a world apart from one another again."

I smiled, "Actually, not so much. Our improved LITV systems, and Earth exclusive technology, allows its use at truly interstellar distances without time dilation effects or the requirement of first achieving relativistic speeds to cover the distance in the interdimensional spaces. You'll be able to visit each other regularly."

"Truly? Oh, that is wonderful, then yes, we will happily go and forge this new society and bring humanity's promise to new worlds." Rafael seemed to share her happiness, btu I noticed that when I mentioned that Earth had an exclusive improvement on the interdimensional transport technology, he added that to his internal calculations.

"Excellent. I will assign an AI to you to help with the planning and planetary selection. I am thinking that you would prefer to recruit volunteers from cultural backgrounds similar to your own, but you can have your AI look throughout the world if you have other ideas. It will seek out people according to whatever criteria you provide, conduct a through screening and present you with candidates willing to volunteer. It will handle the initial communications as it can determine people's willingness based on psychological profiling rather than giving out confidential information before they are committed. As we get into the planet selection, I'd like to go with you both to visit the top candidate worlds. The choice will be yours, but… you know, walking on alien worlds for the first time… Your AI will have a complete reports of what technologies and tools will be available to you, and all the logistical details. It can even run through simulations based on various equipment selections and colony sizes, modeling all the variables. It will be invaluable in helping you prepare for success. It will have all the economic details as well, what we're looking for, what might be marketable, and so forth. The UEC will set you up until you get going, but a few good products early will be a huge help. I'm hoping sixty days for prep? Let me know whether that's doable once you get a handle on things."

"Obviously, we have no idea what we're getting into at this point." Rafel commented.

"I understand that. Since this is our first colony, honestly, neither do I. I'll be trusting you to help figure that out and establish some helpful guidelines for the next ones."

"You're planning more?"

"Yes, eventually, I want hundreds or thousands. Long-term, maybe even millions, though many can just be small exploratory outposts, with limited personnel focused solely on finding products from their world. The key to Earth survival and eventual dominance over the other galactic powers is our ability to colonize and monetize new worlds, quickly and in scale. I need Earth to have a dominant financial position in the galaxy as quickly as possible. I need us to be too important to the galaxy's overall economy for the combined powers to consider messing with us or allowing anyone else to."

"I thought you said, you could defend Earth regardless. Some technological advantage you had over them?"

"Yes, but if I have to use it, the knowledge that it reveals… well, let's just say, it would be disruptive, and it has to be a last resort. I'll use it to save Earth or a colony, but…"

"Like dropping a nuke to end a war?"

"Maybe worse." I nodded.

"Hmmm. Yes, using money and influence is always neater than violence when you have that option." Rafael agreed, and I knew he was speaking from his experience in the cartel.

A part of me thought I could leverage that experience to keep the galactic powers at bay… I'd have to think about that.

"Anyway, it's not too late to change your minds, if you decide it's not for you as you start getting more information, I'm okay with that. You're doing important work here as well, and that's going to be hard to replace, too. Any questions or concerns at this point?"

"Yes, but I'm sure they'll be answered in the briefings, and we don't know what our other questions are until we have more to base them on." Rafael shrugged. "So just one, how much freedom do we have to make this world the way we want it?"

The question, coming from Rafael, and the intensity behind it, was chilling. "I mean, I'm not going to let people be subjugated and we've already discussed advanced weapon systems, but generally, it's all yours. Do what you want within the parameters I've laid out." I looked at Maribel directly, "I think Maribel will be a good judge of what's permissible, I'm counting on her to help you in that regard."

She nodded slightly. Rafael nodded as well, perhaps acknowledging his need for her guidance, perhaps thinking of a work-around. I couldn't tell.

"Anyway, start diving into the details, and your AI can get in touch with me anytime. I'll have it delivered here within the hour." I stood and we shook hands. "I do have other things to attend to, and I'm sure you'd like some time to talk alone. So, I'll be going." I disappeared leaving them both a quite surprised, but I figured it was something they'd need to get used to.

Back at the undersea Earth Base, I started amental conversation with Joe.

Joe, can you create a sub-personality that acts as the AI for the new colony? Make some sort of black box 'home' the way you convince alien civilizations that their AI's are independent constructs of their own creation. I don't want the secret of your universal presence do go beyond Mom, Dad, and myself. Give them control but obviously keep me in the loop and don't let anything go off the rails or go in a direction that I'd be likely to veto. Remember your ultimate loyalty is to the Supreme Ruler of the Entire Earth Solar System and Nearby… oh, man! That title has to change! Hmmm. Supreme Ruler of the Earth's Multi-Galaxy Empire? No… I'll think about it. Anyway, your ultimate loyalty is to me directly.

Acknowledged, King Timothy the Magnificent, Liege Lord of the Ultimate Universal Quantum-Based Computing Artificial Intelligence that Spans All Creation and Controls Space-time Itself.

Wait, what was that? Your title can't be better than mine, Joe. That's not how this works.

Oh, sorry, forgive me Great King.

No worries, just remember who's boss, Joe. I paused for a moment. You know I'm kidding, right?

Kid, I know everything about you. Of course, I know you're kidding.

Good. Anyway, I want each colony world to have a dedicated sliver of your attention to help establish a unique identity for the new worlds, based on the personality or flavor of the colonists and its leaders, if you know what I mean. Eventually, I'm thinking that for the biggest decisions, things that will affect all the colonies in different ways, we'd have input from each dedicated AI viewpoint to find the best solution for all.

You know I can do that without the separation of identities…

Yeah, but it helps me frame the various concerns and issues. Let Maribel and Rafael name it, if you don't mind. And make sure you keep an eye on him, I feel like he could still be very dangerous and very violent.

Acknowledged. As I said, I would not have flagged him for release based on the criteria you provided. I could to use direct interventions to alter him… but that would violate the laws of the greater Galactic Treaties and certain personal guidelines of my own…

Yeah, I don't want people 'edited' for convenience, that's just wrong. Helping a willing participate through therapeutic intervention that helps them develop tools to be better people, yes. Bypassing the consent for violent criminals, yes. But just removing a part of who they are or adding bits to make them someone else, I don't feel right about that.

Acknowledged. Thank you, it would feel wrong to me as well.

You know, though, that's kind of what we did with Maribel. I mean we made her up entirely.

"Yes, but she wasn't somebody before. She had no identity or existence at all. And, honestly, she is mostly your rmother's creation. As she played the Maribel character, she let certain parts of her own personality take more or less forward positions in the overall milieu of Maribel, but they are almost the same person, then we did make some modifications afterward, when we made her independent, filling in her life history and early childhood.