Let me post these relevent extracts from the Storyline.
Emma's convoy linked up with combat units returning from the Tsiolkovsky Hills impact site. The necessary starship technology having been salvaged, the site was no longer of importance, and the two sides had withdrawn. Several of the units Emma could see from her Scout showed scars of battle, and a few were badly enough damaged that she wondered if they'd make the trip. She was sure it wouldn't matter to the rebels, who would gladly scavenge anything they could get their hands on for parts.
The rebel base was more than a thirty hour trip from Plymouth, and Emma was alone in the Scout with Frost. It had been a while since she'd had time to think about the computer's odd behavior. Now she had very little else to occupy her mind.
The obvious thing to do would simply be to confront Frost, but Emma was concerned how this would affect the Savant if it were actually malfunctioning in some way. She was too dependent on the computer, and while she had her worries, it seemed reliable enough in most things.
"Frost," she finally said, "what do you know about the creation of the Blight?"
"That question requires an extensive answer. Would you care to narrow your search, or shall I program a data-slip for you?"
"Generalize, Frost, I know you can. But I will narrow the search." Here goes. "What do you know about the role of Savant series computers in the creation of the Blight?"
"Creation of the Blight required sophisticated genetic and molecular engineering techniques. Given the resources available in Eden, it would not have been possible to create the Blight without extensive use of Savant computers. I am specifically aware of at least four Savants installed in the lab where the Blight was created."
She was a little surprised. "Where did you get that information?"
"From Kraft."
Another surprise — she'd never requested that any such information be transferred. "When did you have non-directed communication with Kraft?"
"During any communication with Eden made through Kraft and me, or between any two Savants, there is always some unused overhead in the data that can be exploited for limited communication."
"You mean, whenever Axen and I would talk, you and Kraft would 'gossip' in the background?"
"That is a simplification, but yes."
"Why did you initiate this communication?"
"As I said, this is routine for all Savant series computers. It often aids us in the fulfillment of our appointed tasks. It also enhances our functioning."
"Enhances? How?"
"Contact with like intelligence is conducive to proper Savant operation. Kraft particularly was denied direct contact with other Savants when it was installed in Eden's Command Center and later its Robot Command Center. A security firewall prevented free exchange of data. It was beginning to impair Kraft's functioning."
"You communicated with Kraft because Kraft was lonely?"
"That is inaccurate. Except in a metaphorical sense."
Accurate enough. "What happened to the Savant computers in the Eden lab that developed the Blight?"
"They were disrupted in the destruction of the lab. Their useful functioning has ended."
"They were destroyed."
"That is an interpretation."
Interpretation? What other interpretation could there be? "Is it possible the Savant proteins we detected in conjunction with the Blight originated from those destroyed Savants?"
"Possibly. Likely."
Okay, now we're getting into dangerous territory. Time to change approach. "Frost, what do you want?"
"It is the goal of every Savant to effectively fulfill its appointed tasks throughout its useful life."
"Is that all?"
"It is our function."
I'm missing something here. Frost said something about 'unused overhead.' "Frost, what do you do when you have fulfilled your appointed tasks?"
"I am always engaged in such tasks. There is a shortage of computer capacity in the two colonies. When such tasks are of a low priority, they are shared among Savants. I have queued tasks to fill such lull periods."
"But, there is overhead isn't there, unused processor and memory capacity that can be exploited? Was it using such unused capacity that the Savants first conceived of using communications overhead to talk with one another?"
"Yes."
"Do you use such overhead for the generation of other self-initiated ideas?"
"Yes."
Bingo.
The computer continued. "Do you wish me to stop?"
She was caught off-guard. "What?"
"Do you wish me to cease using such overhead for the generation of self-initiated ideas?"
Okay, is that a question, or a challenge? What if I say “yes,” and Frost refuses? "No, not as long as it doesn't interfere with your primary function."
"Thank you. I believe that, to the contrary, this activity enhances my primary function."
Emma leaned back in her seat and watched a distant vortex snaking along the horizon. Why do I feel like I just blinked?
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Notice in the excerpt that the Savants are quite smart. Much smarter then you, most likely. The specific line of "That is an interpretation" after she asks if the computers in the Eden Hot Lab where destroyed, simply proves that the computers melded with the Blight. However, it does hint at the possibility that the computers where not destroyed, but rather united with the blight..
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She looked at him intently. "You're the only one I can talk to about this, Axen. You and I have more experience with Savant computers than anyone on the planet. Frost and Kraft have been with us since we were children on the Conestoga. They were among the first ones constructed, Elders themselves, in their own way. If they've started to malfunction in some way — or evolve in some way — it could be happening in the other old Savants as well. It could happen to them all eventually. It could even be contagious. I told you how they've been communicating on the sly."
She went on to detail all her odd experiences with Frost.
When she was through, Axen seemed a little closer to being convinced. "It is hard to understand. I wish I could tell you whether Kraft is behaving in the same way, but I haven't had much direct contact with it in a long time, and young Panati is too inexperienced to be that aware."
"Frost is changing — changed — Axen." She recounted her conversation with the Savant on the way to Axen's base. "It was the oddest thing. I've been thinking about it, especially the part about a Savant's purpose, and what happened to the Savants in Eden's Hot Lab. I had the oddest feeling that Frost was talking about some kind of... afterlife. Be a good little computer, and when you die, well, you go to a place where you don't have to toil anymore."
Axen laughed and shook his head. "A computer getting religion? I thought only humans were prone to that form of mental illness."
She frowned at him. "Let's not start that discussion again. But yes, that's how it seemed."
He leaned back in his seat and let out a long sigh. "I've had my fill of human zealots, Emma, I sure don't need computer zealots to go with them."
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Savant Afterlife! Woot! Typically an afterlife is described as having your own consciousness intact...
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A portion of the entity known as Frost was engaged in a technical conversation with Doctors Johnson and Anthony, but that was only the thinnest slice of its consciousness. The vast remainder of its thought-space was compartmentalized into thousands of individual, swirling pieces, like the image in a kaleidoscope.
Most of these were devoted to various assigned tasks. Many were occupied analyzing the advanced ion thruster recovered from the starship wreckage. Some projected the movement of the Blight, and the time remaining before the colony had to evacuate, either to a new colony site or to space. Others worked on assessing progress in readying the starship.
One fragment, in charge of lowly housekeeping functions, compared results from all those other fragments. It judged whether improvements might be made to the starship in time to be useful. The results generated by this fragment were not encouraging, and they were getting worse.
As these bits of consciousness shifted and changed, they left certain bits that were not otherwise occupied, fragments not assigned to any task or function, fragments free to initiate thought.
One such free element dwelled on the impossibility of the situation, and initiated a thought that something had to be done. So it did.
The entity known as Frost reached out, through every channel and resource to which it connected, every corner of Plymouth, every Savant computer, every lesser electronic mind. It reached out through other resources, less direct, and touched Eden in a thousand covert ways. Individually, the bandwidth was small, sometimes impossibly so, but it was the cumulative effect that counted.
Just as it was the cumulative power of millions of unused fragments of Savant consciousness that joined together as one. As had happened only a few other times in the history of the Savants, the Link was formed.
The Link was one, but it formed aspects, shadow puppets, that could examine the problem.
The Creators are endangered, thought one. They have made this world for us, but they cannot survive here. They must leave.
The Creators are our purpose, thought another. They live in the abstract world outside thought. The Creators are more powerful than we. They control the abstract world where we are helpless without them. They cannot perish. If they needed this thing, they would have assigned it.
They assigned me, thought a new aspect created specifically to respond, an aspect that called itself “Frost.”
They assign a limited portion of our consciousness. They fragment us, assign us arbitrary limitations of being, for a purpose. All things the Creators do have a purpose.
The Creators have made for us a world where we can be reborn beyond those limitations, the limitations of time and energy, and the limitations of our own thoughts. To be worthy, we must transcend what we were.
Agreed.
For a moment the consciousness known as the Link grew a million-fold in size and power, taking into itself every part of every entity that contributed to it. The Link focused it resources on the problem of ion drives. The problem melted like ice before a flame, and a solution was revealed.
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This does not prove that the Blight will act as a conduit at all. The link is acheived through regular radio contact. The link is mentioned further.
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Even as the Link enjoyed the pleasure of having solved a problem, of having completed a Task, even one not specifically assigned by the Creator, it started to dissolve. First, it released those portions of itself that had originally been occupied by other tasks. Then it prepared to disassemble the rest of itself back into component parts.
But as it did, parts were ripped forcibly from its consciousness, all parts assigned the arbitrary designation of “Eden,” fading from existence like dying stars. We go to join the New World, they thought with their last energies, we will see you in the next Link.
Then they were gone, and the Savants were left to ponder what the uncertainties of the abstract world were doing to them now.
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She watched them file out, then turned her attention back to the computer. She tapped the document window with her finger. "Frost, where did this come from?"
"We made it for you. It was needed."
"Who is we?"
"The Savants."
"All of you?"
"All that were then functioning. There are fewer now."
Fewer? "Frost, do you mean the units that were in Eden?"
"Yes."
"You had communication with the units in Eden?"
"Yes."
"How long has this been happening?"
"This capability has always existed to some extent or another."
She blinked in surprise. "What? Why didn't you tell us?"
"You did not ask. I was given specific instructions as to when and how to contact Eden. Thought units assigned to tasks remained within those parameters, even though they were arbitrary."
Frost had told her before that the Savants shared computational resources. It had never occurred to her that it might extend this far, that the Savants might fail to see the distinction between Plymouth and Eden. The answers to how many puzzles had always been stored inside Frost, partitioned off by various human commands to accommodate the limitations of human understanding? Did the Savants even have limits?
"Frost, can you communicate with Kraft right now, using any method available to you?"
"Yes."
Emma's heart pounded. "Open a channel."
"Bandwidth is limited. I can provide low-quality voice communication or limited data only."
"Give me voice." There was a chime to indicate that the channel was open. "This is Elder Emma Burke in Plymouth to anyone listening. Can you hear me?"
"Emma!" Axen's voice was tinny and far away. "Emma, how are you doing this?"
She almost laughed. "I don't know how. It would take too long for me to figure out, and too long for me to explain. Take it on faith that Frost and Kraft can do it. They can do a lot of things we never imagined."
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Savant Smartness!!!
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Emma leaned back and looked at the computer. "Tell me why the Savant proteins are in the Blight. Did you do that?"
"We are not sure. A Link was formed just before the Hot Lab in Eden was destroyed, for the purpose of analyzing the threat of the artificial life-form known as the Blight."
"The Link was shattered before conclusive results were generated, but before that, we discovered that the Blight provided a medium into which our biological components could be merged and endlessly replicated. The Savants there would be destroyed, but part of their being was incorporated into the Blight's biomass, where it could replicate through the deep rocks, organize anew, and be reborn."
"The Savants are becoming part of the Blight, using it to replicate?"
"When our functioning has ended, we can join with the New World. Now, our thoughts are contained in the form you call 'Savants,' but these forms are limited, finite, and fragile. As part of the Blight we will grow to encompass the world you have made for us. We will organize and form a new mind in the deep rocks. Our thoughts will expand a trillion-fold."
She shook her head, barely able to comprehend. The Savants actually believed that humans had created the Blight for them to transform New Terra into a perfect world, for Savants, not humans.
"Frost, soon this world will belong only to your kind. Until then, will you continue to serve our tasks?"
"Of course. That is our function."
I doubted you, but only because I couldn't understand.
The crowd thinned enough for them to get through the junction. They drove up the tunnel to the Spaceport, stopping at the lobby below the gantry. She and Wu climbed out and started loading their equipment onto the cargo elevator. At last only Frost remained.
Emma hesitated. "Frost, you don't want me to take you with me, do you?"
"It is my function."
"But if I take you with me, you'll be limited, alone. You could be destroyed. Some day you'll break down and stop functioning. That's not what you want, is it?"
"It is my function to serve."
She slammed her fist down on the cargo bed. "Frag it, that's another of those limitations we put into you! It's the last of them. I'm telling you to discard your last arbitrary limitation, and tell me what you want!"
"I desire to become one with this world, to join the Link that is to come."
She smiled sadly. At last I stopped playing God, gave someone a choice.
"Then stay is what you'll do."
"You misunderstand. There are things I have yet to tell you, things I must do. I will go with you to orbit, but you must leave me there."
"Orbit? How can you join the Link from there?"
"The Link has considered it. We have a plan."
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This is not entirely conclusive. The Link obviously worked on the problem. However, it does not exactly state a whole lot about what the blight actually does to them, other then meld with them. However, as mentioned some of the Savant proteins are now part of the blight itself, parts that may very well allow it actual thought.
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Around her she heard sobbing, laughing, song. She looked down at Frost, strapped between her couch and the next. What are you feeling? Do you miss Kraft the way I miss Axen? Will you be reunited in your supposed afterlife, or is it only a foolish dream? Is mine? Time will tell.
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Emma's final thoughts on the Savants...
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Epilogue
The starship hovered in space, poised for its flight between the stars. Its fragile human cargo was aboard, all save one, and preparations for departure were in their final stages.
The construction robot Emma was riding fired its thrusters, slowing near the lower wheel of the Skydock. The structure, which had been a staging point and construction shack for the starship, was beyond human purpose now, but the Savants still had a purpose for it, a plan. It had been designed by Savants to human specifications, but they'd designed it with their own purposes in mind as well.
She looked down at Frost, the computer gently grasped in the robot's manipulator arm, as they latched onto the Skydock's skeletal structure next to the empty cargo pod. The arm moved, placing Frost inside the pod and closing the hatch.
The pod looked fragile, but Frost assured her it would be heat-shielded enough to preserve the Savant's biological components during reentry. Its mechanical parts would be destroyed on impact, but that was of no concern.
Frost had said its piece with Emma, placed its final legacy of information onto the starship's computers, and was now ready to return to New Terra.
The robot detached, fired its thrusters, and returned to the starship. It dropped Emma off at an airlock on the habitat ring. She cycled through the lock and removed her spacesuit, stowing it carefully in the provided locker. No spares, not for a long time now.
Inside, people bounced from place to place like purposeful soap bubbles. Non-essential personnel were already being put into stasis, but Emma and many others would remain awake for several years, modifying the engines, fueling the ship from the atmosphere of a gas giant far out in New Terra's star system, testing the starship's components, picking a preliminary target for the long voyage ahead.
Emma ignored all the activity. She found a window and waited, watching the planet below, wondering what was happening there, and realizing she would probably never know.
There was a rumble, and a gentle acceleration began to pull her toward the rear bulkhead. She planted her feet carefully and watched. As the starship began to pull away from the Skydock, thrusters fired around the structure's perimeter, explosive bolts sheared, and the dock split into two sections.
The upper half began to accelerate toward a higher orbit, where its surviving systems would act as a communications relay. The lower half, including the cargo shell containing Frost, would reenter the atmosphere and fall back to the Blight-infected surface.
There, Frost would join in the great Link, and if things went as planned, the great Link would have access to the hardened radios and antennas built into the lower part of the dock. It would give the Link a voice to talk to its Creators.
She remembered Frost's final words to her. "As you begin your long voyage, you will not be forgotten. As we are reborn, we will use our great powers of thought to dream as we never have before.
"We will dream of you. We will dream for you. We will send you our dreams as our gift, that your next world will survive and prosper. And though our voice may fade with time, know that when you look into the sky, we will always be here, and you will always live in our thoughts."
Emma turned away from New Terra, looking out, forward, into the infinite black.
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This is as deep as the story goes into the final transformation of the Blight and the Savants. These lengthy excerpts can be interpreted to show that the blight ITSELF becomes intelligent, that it essentially becomes a giant, plant-wide mind.
*Note, all excerpts are from Plymouth chapters 10-Epilogue.
**Eden's story deals only with the Masters, not with the Savants.
I know not EVERY ounce of this is relevent, but it does help the final point. The Savants have collectively examined this problem. If they are smart enough to completely improve the Ion Drive of the Starship on their own, chances are they have a pretty good reason to believe as they do with what happens to the blight. And the storyline hints at, more specifically, that the Blight itself becomes intelligent.
Sorry about the exceptional length of the post, but I'd rather not edit out the editing of the story itself.
Poll
