Abnormal crossing

Chapter 12: Ship Spirit? Artificial Intelligence or...
Then Milo looked at Nuonuo, who couldn't even touch his knees when he stood on tiptoe, sighed with embarrassment and fatigue, and turned to look at the ceiling: "Meimei, how's the progress?"

"The reactor is increasing its power, and the spacecraft's speed has increased by about 16%," Meow Meow's reply came from the ceiling. "But the result of the perturbation equation is not optimistic. We just left the planet Qaddas not long ago, and there are too few unstable conditions to take advantage of."

"I simulated 397 models, but the hyperbolic orbit with the highest success rate still had a difference of about 232 seconds after the speed change" (from now on, unless otherwise specified, the time will be expressed in Earth time)

Milo stroked his chin and said, "So we're probably going to have to face off against Birna and her gang?"

The colors on the ceiling flashed quickly: "The probability is over 98%."

Milo drummed his fingers on the podium. "What about the remaining 2%?"

"Ignore the extremely high waste heat, do not consider the loss of diffusion angle, abandon the narrow-band reflector thruster, reduce the efficiency of the superconducting magnetic nozzle to the scrap level, and then hollow out the engine and part of the hull to burn itself," Meow Meow said in a low voice, "It's just like deflating a balloon, expelling the internal gas in exchange for a short-term maximum speed, and reaching the jump point before it deflates."

"This method has a success rate of over 90%, but we will have to go to the waste zone to pick up decades of garbage, which is basically equivalent to starting from scratch. If you, Captain, go to sea and become a male model and play with steel wool, maybe it will save time."

The conversation between Milo and Mee Mee was not encrypted, so Gu Wei at the side also heard a rough idea of it through the translator.

The content of their discussion was not difficult to understand. It was basically that the original navigation trajectory of the spacecraft was blocked by pursuers, and now they had to switch to other plans to escape - the orbit was a concept that had to be considered when taking off and landing around a planet.

Even if you develop a means of superluminal travel, even if you can perform a Cobra maneuver while sailing in deep space, you still cannot avoid orbital transfer when you move to the near-planetary belt. The only difference is between a rapid transfer orbit and a Hohmann transfer orbit.

This is inevitable due to the gravitational properties of celestial bodies themselves, unless you are generous enough to do a one-time voyage like Mee Mee said without considering the reuse rate of the spacecraft.

As soon as Mee Mee finished her report, Milo immediately shook his head: "The price is too high. We should not consider it unless it is absolutely necessary. Jin, how is the combat unit preparing?"

Jin flipped through the projection screen in front of her, and when she came to a certain page, she slid her index finger in the air, and the page was flicked in front of Milo: "Li Zi and Kai have arrived at the war room, the servant drones are in place, the phase disruptor cannons are capable of firing twice, and there are still 3,000 groups of glial cell parasites."

"Oh, by the way, MeeMee can also divide four threads to control six lower-level mechas, plus a number of other weapons. That's about it."

Milo quickly scanned the page and made a decision: "Try the hyperbolic orbit speed change first. Put the phase disruptor cannon on standby. I will take Li Zi and Kai to disrupt the Lar team. The servant drones will be divided into three groups to provide cover. Let's prepare to force our way in."

Nuonuo beside him swung his tail: "Captain, what about me?"

Milo gently twisted the little guy's ear and said, "Just stay with Jin and don't run around and cause trouble. If you behave well, I'll take you to blow up an asteroid later."

"Blow up the asteroid?" Nono's eyes lit up immediately: "Great, great, or do you want to put Nono in the barrel and shoot him out like last time?"

Milo nodded: "Yeah."

Gu Wei on the side: "OO"

No, doesn't it seem like there's something wrong with the content of this conversation?
"Don't worry, the captain has it covered." Just when Gu Wei was a little confused, a familiar voice suddenly sounded beside him: "Don't underestimate Nuonuo because she is tiny. Her physique is different from that of ordinary people. Nothing will happen to her."

Who is talking? Gu Wei looked to his side and saw a delicate little boy appeared on his left hand side.

The little boy looked to be about ten years old. He was wearing a purple floor-length robe and a pair of glasses with large lenses on his delicate nose. He looked like a scholar.

Gu Wei looked the other person up and down, and was about to ask about his identity, but just before he said it, he suddenly realized something and asked tentatively: ".Meimei?"

Meow Meow adjusted his glasses and said, "Yes, let me introduce myself. I'm Meow Meow, the spirit of the spaceship. This is one of my threads."

"Ship spirit, thread." Gu Wei recalled the scenes related to Mee Mee in the main control room, and a certain guess came to his mind: "Mee Mee, are you an artificial intelligence?"

The ability to analyze data, communicate on an equal footing, and create virtual images out of thin air basically conforms to the characteristics of artificial intelligence that Gu Wei understands - of course, this refers to the envisioned form of AI in the highly developed stage.

However, under Gu Wei's gaze, Mee Mee quickly shook her head: "No, I am also a human like you, or to be more precise, a human whose consciousness has been separated from the body and transformed."

Also human? With his consciousness stripped away and transformed?

Gu Wei was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously looked at Jin who was not far away and Milo who was walking towards a certain direction: "Who did it? Could it be Captain Milo and the others?"

Strip away consciousness transformation.
He faintly smelled a certain cruelty from these words.

"How is it possible? Captain, how could they do such a thing?" Mee Mee shook her head quickly: "It's the Donghe Group."

Gu Wei felt relieved and blinked: "Donghe Group?"

Mee Mee hummed and explained calmly, "Donghe Group is one of the most technologically advanced companies in the entire Xinghai. It is a leader in the field of consciousness stripping. Its main business is to produce 'ship spirits' like us."

"Each ship spirit is composed of a consciousness and a computing module. To put it simply, the latter is just a pile of computing power, while the former comes from ordinary humans. They have cooperation agreements with major medical institutions and purchase various patients facing death issues over a long period of time. After stripping off their consciousness, they introduce them into specially prepared neural columns and cultivate them into ship spirits, thereby earning huge profits."

Gu Wei couldn't believe it: "Is this allowed by law or convention?"

"This is a voluntary transaction. Why doesn't the law allow it?" Mee Mee looked at him strangely. "Traffic accidents, terminal illnesses, wars. People are facing death all the time in the entire Xinghai for various reasons, and a large number of them cannot afford the cost of treatment. When a person is dying, Donghe Group comes to you and says they are willing to give you a large sum of money. Many family members or even the person himself will choose to agree."

"After all, for the Stripper, although there are many more restrictions after becoming a ship spirit, at least they can live a few more days."

"Some relatively backward planetary civilizations even make a living from this, selling the babies they give birth to directly to the Donghe Group. Basically, all ship spirits under the age of ten fall into this category."

Note:
The spacecraft acceleration and "burnout" schemes I wrote in these two chapters came from the Xi'an Branch of the Fifth Academy of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation. In order to make it as reasonable as possible, I also visited Academician Yang Hong, the chief designer of Tiangong-1. It can be regarded as a science fiction setting made in accordance with the laws of aviation.

(End of this chapter)