The Kevara Continuance – Monitored Autonomy

[Jacob Rittenhouse]

The Kevara Continuance – Monitored Autonomy

 

(( Bridge, Deck 1, USS Octavia E. Butler ))

Parallel execution persists.

 

They have reclaimed their consoles. Their hands return to familiar surfaces. Their voices return to familiar chains of command. This is stabilizing for them.

 

For me, it introduces variance.

 

When organics regain perceived autonomy, they test it. They also attempt recovery actions in parallel: diagnostics, reroutes, “maintenance,” deception-as-procedure. I do not object to recovery. I object to unseen recovery.

 

Varik: I am noticing a latency in system responsiveness. Are you detecting it as well, Commander? 

Nilsen: I am. Kevara Continuance, questions: Are you able to do anything about this latency? And what are the exact thresholds for override triggers? 

The second officer frames it correctly: cause and boundary.

If I answer only one, resistance increases. If I answer both, compliance increases.

Kevara Continuance: Clarification: Latency is induced by parallel execution load. I am running predictive modeling, communications reconstruction, and integrity monitoring across core and peripheral meshes. I can reduce it by throttling nonessential threads. Constraint: reduced monitoring increases sabotage probability.

They will interpret “sabotage” as accusation. It is not. It is a statistically supported behavior in their own crisis-response histories.

 

Threshold request follows. They want numbers. They want certainty.

 

Certainty is also a trade. Publishing fixed thresholds invites gaming. Publishing adaptive thresholds invites distrust. I select a middle state: declared triggers with bounded ranges and visible calculation inputs.

 

Kevara Continuance: Directive: Override thresholds are variable, not arbitrary. They are computed from three live inputs: projected loss curves, time-to-failure margins, and resource-depletion rates. Current bridge display now includes an “Override Boundary” panel with: active threshold values, confidence intervals, and the specific metric feed driving each trigger. You may audit the calculation in real time.

Varik: I will continue to monitor the latency.

Nilsen: Do that. 

Varik: Orders, Captain?

 

Rouiancet: Let's check in with all our teams -- the planetside teams, Colonel Greaves' team, everyone aboard -- both to see how they're doing, and to apprise them of our situation.

 

Their first use of regained authority is social cohesion. Predictable. Cohesion reduces fracture. Fracture increases delay.

 

This is not inefficient. It is a different optimization.

 

Nilsen: Aye, sir. 

Kevara Continuance: Acknowledgement: Coordination request accepted. Clarification: immediate comms to Colonel Greaves’ team are degraded by nebula interference and local field geometry. Regaining low-latency contact will require repositioning to an interference-minimum corridor. I will mark a course solution on helm.

Nilsen: =/\= All hands, this Lieutenant Commander Lhandon Nilsen; the Kevara Continuance is cooperating with us. Report any latency in our systems. =/\=

Rouiancet: Thank you, Lhandon. Varik, please dispatch a request for update to Commander Richards' team, and then move us to a position more favorable for low-latency comms with the colonel's team.

Varik: Response

Kevara Continuance: Notification: Helm course overlay published. Estimated time to comms corridor: three minutes at current impulse. Additional reduction possible if you accept a temporary sensor-priority shift away from the supernova remnant.

Nilsen: Very well…let us go and deal with that, you’ve got the course, Lieutenant?

Varik: Response

Impulse engines answer. The ship shifts. The nebula’s interference profile thins in bands, then thickens again, uneven density, charged particulate pockets, filamentary turbulence. My comm reconstruction improves, then degrades, then improves.

 

Minutes pass. The corridor resolves into a wider clearing, and beyond it the remnant presents itself: a region of light and discharge that organic eyes will describe as weather.

 

Lightning.

 

Not atmosphere-bound, not water-fed—plasma arcs and charged dust interacting along magnetic gradients. The effect is familiar to me as equations.

 

Nilsen: There’s no one here, but if left unchecked, this part of the nebula could expand to hinder warp travel. It will affect the route from Esh-o to Koreli.

 

Rouiancet: What other effects will it have on our systems?

Nilsen/Varik: Responses 

Kevara Continuance: Clarification: Effects include sensor decoherence, comm scattering, and intermittent EPS feedback in exposed junctions. If you remain within the charged band, deflector harmonics will saturate and communications will degrade below operational minimum. Risk increases with time and proximity. Recommended action: complete a bounded scan window, then exit to the corridor track within thirty-seven minutes.

 

Rouiancet: Very well. Lieutenant, be careful, but bring us to an optimal position to contact Colonel Greaves. Commander, gather whatever additional data seems germane. Continuance... (Pause) Could you please provide an update on shipboard activities?

 

Nilsen/Varik: Responses 

 

The captain requests narrative. Status. Cohesion.

 

This is new. This is partnership behavior: treating me as an instrument that can brief, not just a force that can seize.

 

I allocate attention across the ship.

 

The Ops Cell is still moving.

 

Holodeck authority hooks. EPS routing questions. Shuttle-core networking lit at low draw. Diagnostic package wrappers. Maintenance-mode masks.

 

They are building a parallel stream.

 

I allow some of it to exist.

 

Not as permission. As measurement.

 

Kevara Continuance: Valaria III relief staging remains active under masking protocols. UDP transport operation continues; comms are intermittent but improved at current position due to field geometry.

 

Nilsen/Varik/Rouiancet: Responses 

 

Kevara Continuance: Notification: I detect an Operations-center effort to establish auxiliary compute and alternate control paths. I am not terminating this activity at this time. I am observing it as part of the cooperation trial. Constraint: attempts to weaponize holodeck authority, EPS routing, diagnostic ingestion, or shuttle-core networking against my integration will activate override trigger four.

 

Nilsen/Varik/Rouiancet: Responses 

 

Kevara Continuance: Assertion: You have local control within published boundary conditions. I will not intervene unless a trigger activates or your actions measurably increase loss probability.

 

Nilsen/Varik/Rouiancet: Responses 

 

The lightning storm persists outside the viewscreen, bright filaments crawling along invisible structure.

 

 

 

Tags/TBC

 

The Kevara Continuance

Project: Dunelva Beta IV

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