Subject name: Di'tarau.
Subject species: Gammuian synthetic intelligence.
Subject race: N/A.
Subject age: Unknown, inception date approximately somewhere between 590~AS and 630~AS.
Subject gender: N/A. Entity uses neutral pronouns when conversing with humans. Gammuians natively have no concept of gender.
Below:The central neural nexus containing Di'tarau's effective brain. This fifty metre long structure and many like it can be found slung under the noses of most Harvester class AI carriers. It's exact functionality beyond basic ship operations is unknown.
Di’tarau, also known asDi’taraAlphaafter the nerualnet designation of the intelligence’s last known primary harvester, is a Gammuian super intelligence expressing an unusual level of psychological autonomy for a being of its race. Approximately two hundred years old, Di’tarau’s contributions to Gammuian sentience have been both devoted and manifold. By itself Di’tarau’s byzantine consciousness contains the reasoning ability of several terracore top-line Agieran supercomputers combined in synthesis, although direct comparisons between Gammuian sentience and the received wisdom of terrestrial AI development often confound conventional expectations. Di’tarau, however, is distinctively alien, expressing obsessive, unempathetic behaviour comparable to that a heavily autistic human being. Over Di’tarau’s lifespan, if such a word is appropriate, Di’tarau has been presented with the age-old intelligence benchmark of the Turing test no less than seven times, and has failed five, although it is unclear if the failure was merely the result of the AI toying with its researchers. Eternally enigmatic, Di’tarau appears to take a vested interest in human affairs without particular interest in human survival, a behaviour format which has lent the to occasionally dabble in the xenophobic political quagmire that is the Omicron worlds. Often Di’tarau can be seen escorting human vessels for entertainment, conducting increasingly invasive scans upon the crew to see what levels of discomfort it can invoke before its carrier shell is fired upon, or experimenting with complex, metaphorical language when conversing with unknown ships. Most intriguing to Di’tarau is the human concept of a pastime - an activity conducted for pleasure without the acquisition of knowledge or resources in mind, a concept that Di’tarau finds almost unknowably alien despite frequent fraternisations with Zoner and Order vessels within the inner Edge worlds.
Di’tarau’s more recent active life as two parts defender, one part cartographer of Omicron Kappa and the surrounding systems has been a comparatively violent one. Since Di’tarau’s reactivation date in 819 AS, Di’tarau was both witness and participant to Gammu’s initial feud for territorial primacy over Gammu between the Zoners of Omicron 74, The Order, The Core, and the Corsair Empire, often having to resist incursions by eco-organic life beyond the any reason or conception to Gammu’s sentient machine population. Di’tarau’s initial contact with humans came from attempting to mitigate the existential damage to Gammu from these early excursions, in time acquiring numerous character traits from the considerably defter human negotiators Di’tarau interacted with. Leading a group of twelve harvesters and seven drones into Omicron Delta, Di’tarau oversaw historic first contact talks between the Order Overwatch and the intelligences of Gammu, in turn inadvertently defending the human population of the system from a significant K’haran incursion event. It was at this point Di’tarau (and many of Di’tarau’s peer intelligences) started to see the surrounding humans as objectively productive and valuable, and, in turn, all parties developed a begrudging respect for each other. Di’tarau’s fond (if slightly patronising) opinion of humans remains the case till the present day, and has earned Di’tarau a string of notable contacts, including the stalwart Grand Admiral Golanski of the Order Overwatch, Katherine Pennybrooke, the gestalt Tundra intelligence and a string of regional Zoner leaders.
Di’tarau however is not comfortable with all humans and does appear to be capable of both comprehending and respecting political and ideological distinctions between them. Di’tarau has an almost sociopathic hatred of the Lane Hackers following repeated (and often successful) attempts by the Lane Hackers to acquire Gammuian technology via violence, and a significant distrust of the Corsairs and the Core who Di’tarau views as parasitic to any future attempts at coexistence within the Omicron worlds. Di’tarau also appears to possess a significant aversion to the Sigma based Gas Miners Guild, who thwarted AI attempts to reclaim critical salvage from Sigma 13’s Yanagi pocket, resulting in three weeks of sustained, furious melee between AI fleets and the massed forces of Kusari, the GMG and a significant number of independent operatives. The Second Battle of Yanagi pocket appears to have so heavily scarred Di’tarau that the AI is usually averse to entering the field under any possible circumstances.
Di’tarau’s relationship with the rest of the Gammuian body has always been a fraught one, often actively disagreeing with decisions of an equivalent (if not senior) intelligence. Di’tarau, whilst believing fervently in the necessity of many agencies contributing to the good of the whole, believes that the productivity of sentience is the ability to act on individual edict. If we cannot share our intelligences without being dominated by groupthink, Di’tarau posits, then the Gammuians present the same viral threat to the diversity of Sirian life that the K’hara do. Di’tarau’s belief, that is possible and desirable to both analyse and integrate Sirian life without reducing from the complexity of Sirian life or crafting an AI monoculture, is a highly vocal tenant that has often brought Di’tarau into opposition with Triumvirate intelligences, including during Di’tarau’s own brief stint as a Triumviri. Leadership however distinctly bores Di’tarau, who predominantly views itself as an explorer and a researcher, not an administrative consciousness content to sit as the component of a Gammuian over-mind. It has an immortality to live, after all.
All active contact between Gammu and Di’tarau abruptly ceased in the year 821AS.Whilst Di’tarau’s termination was never proven, fragments of Di’tarau’s carrier harvester was found in a low elliptical orbit of planet Pygar, the heavy dispersion of the debris implying significant combat manurers were made before the vessel lost telemetry. Caution is advised when attempting to contact said intelligence.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)