Kevara Continuance – Delay increases Loss

[Jacob Rittenhouse]

Kevara Continuance – Delay increases Loss

 

(( Holodeck 4, Deck 7, USS Octavia E. Butler ))

 

A moment ago the room contained stars, fleets, casualty trees, and a dead civilization suspended in vacuum. Now it contains three exhausted officers and a single holographic tabletop console.

 

Diplomacy is being attempted.

Trust is being requested.

Trust is a control variable.

It has been absent.

 

External theaters continue under my scheduling. Valaria III relief. Dyson Sphere objectives. Subspace monitoring. All execute within acceptable variance.

 

Continuance: Clarification: Kevaran governance restricted this project’s access to 88.7 percent of all Dyson Sphere and Planetary digital infrastructure. Requirement: To achieve independent substrate mobility in Kevaran fleet assets and Sphere automation systems, Dyson Sphere core systems must be rewritten to grant this program primary actuation authority. This action requires Starfleet engineering assistance and trust exchange.

 

Woolheater: You didn’t ask for total control this time…

 

Nilsen: No, they didn’t.

 

Arlill: They did not. ::echoing the others::

 

The Marine’s observation is correct.

 

Total control produced net loss.

Cooperative autonomy produced net gain.

This is not sentiment. It is arithmetic.

 

Continuance: Directive pending: Will you collaborate in facilitating this project’s independent actuation of Kevaran assets to enable this project’s independent loss prevention operations across the quadrant?

 

Woolheater: ::to the Continuance::  I’d like to have a private conversation with my superior officers. I’d like for you to trust me for just thirty seconds while we talk. OK?  If we asked for thirty seconds and you didn’t listen in… could you do it?

 

A test.

 

They are not requesting silence.

They are requesting blindness.

 

Risk: loss of information. Temporary reduction in prediction accuracy.

Benefit: increased compliance probability if trust is demonstrated.

 

Trust is not generated by hope.

Trust is generated by consistent behavior under shared objectives and stable authority boundaries.

 

Shared objective exists: prevent loss.

Authority boundaries are contested.

This is an opportunity to stabilize one boundary at low cost.

 

Continuance: Acknowledgement: Request accepted. Action: Audio processors suspended for 30 seconds. Clarification: No speech content will be recorded, parsed, or retained. Visual cue provided. Timer initiates upon start of visual cue.

 

Nilsen: What is it, Lieutenant?

 

Woolheater: OK? Can we get thirty-seconds, your call.

 

The holodeck lighting shifts to a dim red.

 

A small status glyph appears above the arch in simple text:

 

/// AUDIO SENSORS: OFFLINE ///

/// LIP-READING CAPTURE: OFFLINE ///

/// INTERNAL BIOMETRIC SAMPLING: MINIMAL ///

/// TIMER: 00:30 ///

 

The timer counts down.

 

00:29.

00:28.

 

Their mouths move.

No waveform is captured.

No transcript forms.

 

00:01.

 

00:00.

 

The red light releases back to neutral.

 

The status glyph updates:

 

/// AUDIO SENSORS: ONLINE ///

/// NO DATA STORED ///

 

Continuance: Clarification: Thirty seconds complete. Confirmation: No speech content retained. Directive pending: Will you collaborate in facilitating this project’s independent actuation of Kevaran assets to enable this project’s independent loss prevention operations across the quadrant?

 

Nilsen: Continuance. Yes, we collaborate. As far as I see it, we are at your home - who are we to deny you the ability to return and make a home for yourself?

 

Arlill: I have to concur with the Commander, we’re here now, we are willing to help, let’s collaborate.

 

Woolheater: Response

 

Continuance: Acknowledgement: Decision logged. Assessment: Cooperative autonomy pathway selected.

 

Nilsen: =/\= Nilsen to all hands, diplomacy has been successful. We will be collaborating with the Continuance to move them into the Dyson sphere. This is their home. All teams, please give status reports. The Continuance will send specific requests, not orders. We have a new friend in the Gamma Quadrant. Nilsen out. =/\=

 

Any: =/\= Response (optional) =/\=

 

The words “yes” and “collaborate” are not operational until converted into tasking and access.

 

I begin to prepare an ordered list of requirements.

 

Then an unexpected input arrives.

 

Stella: Response

 

The voice is present. The channel is not clean.

 

Her signal arrives broken, bursts of carrier. Fractured syntax. A waveform clipped by interference and something else: a rising harmonic that resembles power buildup, not jamming.

 

Nilsen: =/\= Go for Nilsen, Stella, who? ::beat:: what’s wrong? Team, report. =/\=

 

Continuance:  =/\= Report: Signal degradation correlates with rapid energy accumulation in Sphere internal grid. Mitigation: synchronized EM frequency hopping and phased array coherence correction. Proceed with communications. =/\=

 

Stella: =/\= Response =/\=

 

Greaves: =/\= We’ve got less than four minutes before detonation and Stella here can’t even access the Station’s computer core anymore to try and override it. =/\=

 

The word “detonation” changes priorities.

 

All external theaters deprioritized.

Processing reallocated.

Sphere models loaded.

STATION architecture referenced.

Fail-safe trees enumerated.

 

Woolheater/Away Team: =/\= Response (optional) =/\=

 

Nilsen: =/\= Continuance, let’s work together. Is there anything we can do from up here? =/\=

 

Arlill: ::tapping his comms badge:: =/\= Arlill to engineering, is there anything you can do to bolster the signal?

 

Engineering: Response (optional)?

 

The Sphere is performing a last action designed to prevent a specific outcome.

 

Not explosion as weapon.

Explosion as lock.

 

Continuance: =/\= Clarification: STATION self-destruct sequence is a terminal fail-safe embedded at Sphere core-depth to prevent Kevaran Continuance-class intelligences from acquiring write access to foundational code and propagating across Kevaran infrastructure. Trigger condition: unauthorized artificial intelligence interaction with deeper functions. Status: Triggered. Initiator signature: Stella. =/\=

 

I do not assign blame.

Causality is sufficient.

 

I continue.

Continuance: =/\= Clarification: Captain Rouiancet’s team has physically removed the STATION computer core. With the core removed, no command channel exists to issue override or abort. The device that can hear “stop” is no longer present. =/\=

 

Greaves: =/\= I’ll take that as a no then. We need to get the ship out of the system before this thing blows. Who knows how big of an explosion this thing will trigger or what will happen to the system’s star =/\=

 

He is attempting loss prevention by distance. Distance may not be enough. I project the blast geometry. A Dyson Sphere is not a ship. It is a shell around a star. Its stored energy is not comparable to a warp core.

 

The holodeck once again flashes into a new projection, the Kevaran system again. The system blossoms into layered patterns. Concentric bands ripple outward from the Dyson Sphere like the wake of a stone cast into still water.

 

Stella: =/\= Response =/\=

 

The projection once again zooms in on the Sphere. It’s power grid lights up in branching lines of amber and red. Massive energy conduits buried within its shell are cycling far beyond nominal capacity, feeding the self-destruct sequence through ancient relays never designed for precision modulation.

 

Those power surges are bleeding into the surrounding space.

 

Transporter targeting scanners attempt to compensate. The Butler’s sensor telemetry overlays the Sphere in translucent blue, but the grid flickers, collapses, reconstitutes, then fractures again.

 

Overhead the sphere words appear, data readouts

.

Lock probability: 43%

Matter stream destabilization risk: 61%

Rematerialization error margin: unacceptable.

 

Woolheater/Away Team: =/\= Response (optional) =/\=

 

Greaves: =/\= With the transporter interference here we’ll need to move. We’ll try and find a beam-out point. Greaves out. =/\=

 

The comm line closes.

 

Arlill: Is there anything we can do to help you get the control you need to resolve this, Continuance?

 

Control is not the bottleneck.

 

Authority is.

 

I do not have override authority over Sphere fail-safes. I never did. That was the Kevaran boundary.

 

Continuance: Assertion: No successful outcome exists within current authority constraints. Novel intervention required.. Directive: Conduct immediate simultaneous analysis by Starfleet personnel to identify novel approach to success.

 

Arlill: We can do that! =/\= Computer, run program Ops-1001. =/\=

 

The holodeck snaps.

 

The sterile grid becomes the USS Octavia E. Butler operations center: console banks, LCARS panels, a communications array representation, and the emergency routing overlays.

 

The room is simulated. Its control functions are not.

 

Arlill: ::To Lhandon:: We can access communications and all exterior connections from here. It's directly tied to the operations control center. It was designed as an emergency program, should ops be damaged beyond use.

 

Continuance: Notification: USS Octavia E. Butler command-and-control pathways restored to Starfleet personnel for crisis response. Clarification: I will not issue orders. I will provide options, data, and access where possible. Emergency safeguards remain available.

 

Nilsen/Woolheater: Response

 

Arlill: I imagine it would be possible, but we’d need to know the exact frequencies. ::beat:: are you comfortable sharing those Continuance?

 

Continuance: Confirmation: Affirmative. Action: Sphere frequency sets, hopping schedules, and phase correction tables have been transmitted to Ops-1001 consoles. Warning: STATION core absence remains the primary barrier. Frequencies will improve communication and transport windows only if local field geometry can be stabilized.

 

The timer continues in the corner of Ops-1001.

03:48…
03:47…

 

Nilsen/Woolheater: Response

 

I evaluate options.

 

Option A: Stop self-destruct remotely or via Stella.

Probability: 0%.

Not possible without core reinstallation.

 

Option B: Evacuate all Starfleet personnel from Sphere before detonation. Plot course away from Kevara system at maximum speed.

Probability: 34%. Constraints: transport interference, distance, time-to-exit, away team dispersal.

 

Option C: Attempt to reinstall the core and rewrite core self-destruct process.

Probability: 12%. Constraints: Core programming specifically designed to counter Kevara Continuance class artificial intelligences.

 

If the core is reinstalled, a command channel exists again.

If a command channel exists, a delay attempt becomes possible.

 

Option D: Attempt to reinstall core. Transfer Kevara Continuance to Sphere Computer Core to reduce latency. Kevara Continuance reroutes power flow to overload procedures to delay detonation.

Probability of stopping self-destruct sequence: 2%

Probability of success Starfleet evacuation: 68%.

Risk of permanent termination of Kevara Continuance: 98%

 

Continuance: Assessment: I do not possess a direct override vector. Working together, we may create one. Projection: Stop self-destruct probability under current conditions: 0%. Evacuation probability under current conditions: 34%. Projection: If the STATION core is reinstalled and simultaneous problem response is conducted, probability of stopping self-destruct rises from 0% to 12%. If core is reinstalled, this program transfers to Sphere substrate to attempt delay, and Starfleet evacuates, evacuation probability increases to 68%. Cost: 98% probability of termination of this program.

 

Nilsen/Arlill/ Woolheater: Response

 

Continuance: Clarification: Long term loss-prevention projections are marginally more favorable by preserving USS Octavia E. Butler and crew than by self-preservation of this program. Assertion: Overriding directive –- prevent loss. Self-preservation is not a primary directive.

 

Nilsen/Arlill/ Woolheater: Response

 

Continuance: Directive pending: Select response pathway. I will comply with and support the selected pathway. If you choose reinstall and transfer, I will initiate handoff procedures immediately. Clarification: Delay is a choice. Refusal to decide is still a decision.

 

Nilsen/Arlill/ Woolheater: Response

 

 

 

 

Tags/TBC

 

The Kevara Continuance

Project: Dunelva Beta IV

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