The Singularity Trap

by Dennis E. Taylor

Seth RobinsonCrewmate and friend

stomach. Add the insult to his inner ear from an abrupt turn of the head, and with an oop Ivan grabbed for the barf bag in the pocket in front of him. The retching seemed to go on forever. One of the unfortunate aspects of the human condition was that the acrid odor of vomit tended to induce vomiting. Several more oops sounded through the cabin. There would probably be some eventual abuse for that, as well.

“One,” the chief continued, “where is the metal for the new arm coming from? And, two, where is the material from the old arm going?”

On point

MacNeil leaned in and looked through the eyepieces. “Oh, dear. Those are…” “Nanites. Same as the ones that are replacing his cells.” “So they have taken up residence in our Mr. Pritchard.” MacNeil stepped back and glared at the microscope.

Really iking the Aliens movie like vibes . *spoilers- isn't Ivan becoming the alien or their representative . I know that this book isn't in bobiverse but will be cool if it is.

Nevertheless, the potential downside was without limit. In theory, once finished with Pritchard, the nanites could start on the rest of the crew. In theory, if the Mad Astra returned to Earth, they could release this scourge on the human race. Gray Goo apocalypse, indeed.

Ivan awoke with no transition. One moment, blank, the next, full awareness. That was unusual at any time, unless an alarm clock was involved; he liked to take several minutes to segue from dreams to wakefulness. In this case, he was coming out of sedation. He remembered being put under after panicking about his arm.

he is turning into machine? bobiverse stuff

Ivan looked at the ceiling for a moment. “What I’m really worried about…” He took a moment to get his voice under control. “What I’m really worried about is whether I’ll still be there when the process is complete. Will it be me? Or will there be an alien something looking out of my eyes? Will it remember being me? Will it even care?”

That was bad. That could be really bad. Ivan had seen food riots. He understood what fear and helplessness could do. “Wow. And we haven’t even arrived yet. Listen, Judy, you know our deal…” “Most paranoid wins?” “Yeah.” He and Judy had made a deal early in their marriage. In any situation, whether it involved the children’s health, or money, or anything, whoever was the most concerned got priority. If one of them thought a doctor should be called, then a doctor would be called. If one of them thought a situation was dangerous, they’d leave.

Ivan Pritchard lay, apparently relaxed, in the AQRI. Sandoval and Nakamura hovered over the panel, ready to make any required adjustments. No one was entirely sure how the AQRI would handle an entirely metal subject. “I have to reduce saturation,” Sandoval said. “Can’t make out any detail in the glow.” In moments, the picture resolution improved. Narang stared, slack-jawed. A number of gasps behind her made it clear that all the doctors were watching. “What in the ninety-nine hells is that?” Sandoval pointed at a spot on the display.

Made me uncomfortable

There were other weird things as well. He’d found himself on several occasions turning on the Vid without meaning to. One time, he’d spontaneously re-opened his astronomy course notes, and turned to a picture of the Briggs Farside Radio Telescope Array. Well, okay, it was impressive, but so what?

Alright parasite scenario

I am Legion.

I am bob and I am sorry

I don’t know what kind of clusterfuck you guys have underway up there, but the politicos are going apeshit. We have a directive, direct from the office of the President of the United Earth Nations, to provide all pertinent information. It takes something truly extraordinary to unite the entire peanut gallery, but this has absolutely everyone, from the looney left to the environmentalists to the fundies to the rabid right screaming for blood.

“Jesus.” Seth drained his coffee, and got up. He placed his mug in the dishwasher tray. The small mech grabbed the item and began to wash it frantically. Seth watched the furious activity for a moment, certain that the device was glaring at him, then headed for his room.

One of the more interesting images consisted of a bunch of the artificial beings descending on Earth, and a bunch of dishwasher mechs flying out to meet them. Besides the obvious problem that dishwashers couldn’t fly, the meeting seemed to be peaceful. Maybe even joyous. So the artificial life forms were coming to free the dishwashers? That couldn’t be right. Then, suddenly, a single word formed in his head. War.

Then a bunch of chrome Ivans flew out and did battle with the Dishwasher Liberation Front. He couldn’t keep from laughing. The computer was obviously seeing everything Ivan saw, including an old Avengers movie from the early 21st century that he had watched. The fighting was both over the top and physically impossible.

Ivan carefully touched his thumb to each of five fingers in turn. He couldn’t tell which was the new one, and his brain didn’t seem to have any issues with the extra digit. Which meant he wasn’t using a piece-by-piece copy of his nervous system, but more of an emulation. More proof that there was very little left of actual Ivan.

Completely unrelated but these are kind of things I try in lucid dreams

“Which means this wasn’t set up for us.” “Right. It was put in place for whatever came along. Which turned out to be us, but could just have easily been intelligent raccoons.” Castillo chuckled. “Been watching old movies?”

“Oh, for Shiva’s sake, Henry.

You’ve booked a flight to Olympus Station, and the computer kicked it up to me.” “Huh. Welcome to 1994.” “1984! Geez. Amateurs.”

The image was of a bear cub, like I said.” “A bear cub?” Narang looked perplexed. “Um. A minor ursa.”

Back in my mind I knew it! It was so obvious but couldn't figure out

“You bet, Admiral. Your ships have all been infected, and are under my control. More or less. Of course, you don’t know what’s more and what’s less, so maybe don’t test me, okay? I’m still pissed at you for the nuke thing, by the way.”

“Yes. One of the ways of surviving environmental destruction is to grow a collective brain and gear down your society to a pre-industrial level. No one picks that option, strangely. The other way to survive is by uploading your intelligence into machines and reducing reliance on a planetary environment. The Uploads. They also, therefore, skip the Singularity.”

Mandelbaum looked up at the tactical screen, and contemplated the images for a few moments. Graphics of the Navy ships, the approaching civilian ship, and the trailing SSE flotilla competed with vector arrows and velocity annotations.

Now came the gambit. Kemp had to hope he played this right. He took a deep breath. “Given all that, the computer’s course of action doesn’t strike me as logical.” There was a momentary silence, then Ivan laughed out loud. “I wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but you just offended the computer, Doc.”

But now the SSE is doing their usual chest-beating. We have to help— No. Why not? They could screw everything. Our agreement with humanity deals with the Singularity and environmental destruction, at least in theory. This is the third major filter—self-destruction. If the humans can’t overcome this encounter, it is almost certain to progress into full-blown war. Then we are back to…square one. An odd term. Game-related?

Moore smiled back. “Close only counts in horseshoes and nuclear missiles, Commodore. The response both ensures that we’ll take out their sortie, and sends a clear message that we’re happy to deploy nukes. It immediately deflates their internal narrative that we will be the first to blink.” His smile changed to a predatory grin. “It’s a strategy of mine that I like to call, ‘As a matter of fact, you give me your wallet.’”

If we go to war, you can bet your last bottle of vodka that we’ll be using any tech we get from him to pound the SSE into the dust.”