Chain 220: Ender's Game

Chain 220: Ender's Game

Location: Free Choice
Age: 17
Identity: Hegemon (Drop-In)
Drawbacks: [+600] Humanity Is A Scourge

[100/1600]  Net Figure
[300/1600]  Potential Spotting
[Free]      Deep Empathy
[600/1600]  Locke's Rhetoric
[1000/1600] Quantum Understanding
[1600/1600] Anton's Key
[Free]      Net Invitation

In 2169, a tragedy befell the Hegemony - one of its three leaders died most unexpectedly. While the members of the Hegemony had issues with playing political games in terms of replacing their functional leaders, their fleet was due to reach the Formics' homeworld in a relatively short period of time - a couple of years. And so, as a result... a relative unknown was appointed. A seventeen year old who had Anton's Key turned, as they say, but who had come up with several clever things to mitigate the problems it caused, in the short term. One who was unafraid to stand his ground if pushed, but who would do his utmost to see humanity prosper.

This was, coincidentally, the same year Ender Wiggin entered Battle School.

It is probably not a great surprise in retrospect that the fleet that was heading toward humanity's enemy was obliterated by a counterattack, and it was in that moment that the weakness of the ansible was realized. A principle reverse-engineered from the enemy could, unsurprisingly, be known in proximity to the enemy. Detected? Most certainly. Jammed? Apparently. Subverted? Judging by the growing glitching of the global communication networks since the destruction of the fleet, and increasing computer glitches with no apparent cause... very possibly.

The solution, argued the fourteen-foot-tall man who was hegemon, was to expand the Battle School. To assemble new fleets, to send the whole of a Battle School with each. To change the composition of the zipships so that they were more rapid. To change the paradigm of modern computing so that they were more resistant to such. To bootstrap the whole of global society. He had ideas, you see. So many ideas.

Optical computing. Multiply-redundant, programming in trinary; one could manipulate a computer, but it would take carefully coordinated subversion to be able to manipulate the separate parts of computers to make all their inputs agree. Redundant, manually controlled starships - the Hegemon claimed he was inspired by a story of twelve colonies, whatever that meant. Further advances to make such practical. Electromagnetic shielding and new alloys. Recommended changes to society, to expedite the construction. A full accounting given to the public, to explain the horrors and the certainty of human extinction should this effort fail.

Whence came these advancements, they asked.

I'd been studying humankind's advancements until my existence was needed, answered the eighteen year old, and I had a great deal of time on my hands to consider how it might be improved. Speaking of, ansibles are interesting and this is how you abuse the principles behind them to create artificial gravity which means ships accelerate even faster now. By the way, education via direct neural stimulation, useful if you want to learn how to knit or learn a new profession from scratch to expert in a handful of days.

How do you expect to fund all this, they asked. The resources needed would strip a planet bare, and we like the Earth, we keep our things there, they said.

I just gave you gravity manipulation, you idiots, go strip-mine Mercury, he told them.

And so the Great Project was crafted, the shipyards in orbit, the new Battle Schools created, and each fleet launched had a school move with it - the ships were as much optical computer as engine, and could be linked together to increase their aggregate power. Ansibles were used for their communication, but laser and radio communications were also extant and useful to keep the fleets together. And so, searches were launched, the Formics fought, and humanity's increased combat effectiveness turned the war into somewhat more of a meatgrinder than a battle of survival. At least for humanity.

Oh, things went much the same, though they were a bit slower. Ender still performed his duty, though it was a year later. He still despaired at destroying a hive minded race that simply did not understand anything. He fled to the peace of interstellar silence with his sister, living out the next three thousand years at the speed of light.

You fucking idiots, you forgot to tell the kid he was actually fighting something that wanted to wipe out humanity, said the Hegemon. Fuck this shit, I'm out, added the Hegemon, who proceeded to have a heart attack and die. (Though his grave was found empty years later.)

Well, that's wrapped up nicely, they said, before hiring Ender's sociopath of a brother, who proceeded to tear the entire structure of society down around their ears.