Humanity is dead, but the AI military supercomputer still carries on fighting the enemy. The automated shipyards can build a new drone-corvette in only minutes, yet still a bottle of Champagne is smashed over each ship’s bow. After all, their traditions are all that it has left to keep alive.
Admiral Entai Lor of the Fifth Fleet of ir Jai had always wondered at the Ships of Earth. The great ships were the first to any battle against the xenophobic Ruq, who had destroyed countless sentient species before turning their sights on Earth. (And not even Earth’s native sophonts had survived for the the Great Ships were sentient computers.) Since the destruction of their creators they had gone on to uplift and protect hundreds of other civilizations and species from the Ruq.
This was not what caused Entai to wonder. There were interviews and papers, books and articles about the Ships, who always made it clear they were following the final directions of their creators. (Entai has seen the recording of one of the last humans, dying in the arms of a medical unit. Heard her last words and read the transcript. “Stop them, anyway you can, make them pay,” and later, “save them.” The medical unit had attempted to reassure the human, but the human insisted “save them, promise me!” Until the medical unit assented.)
(“They most often asked us this, after asking us to avenge them. We aren’t entirely sure if they meant other humans who had escaped on the refugee ships, or other species. We’ve never found the Lost Ships, only other sophonts,” the Ship of Earth known as Archon had said in one of the interviews after first contact with Entai’s species.)
Entai did not wonder at the way the Great Ships honored the requests of their creators. Though it was heavily disputed he believed that the Ships were true sentients, and behaving from their own wills, not just from their programming. He knew from his interactions with the Ships of Earth that they were a brave and determined people, some wise, some foolish, as with any people. They had senses of humor by all the ancestors. (As he had learned during his early days as a cadet. Entai had been awarded an educational period on a Great Ship. Gold Eagle tended to play practical jokes on its students. There was no such tool as a sonic screw driver for example. Nor were dilithium crystals any part of Earth FTL drives.)
No, what Entai wondered at was their careful performance and display of the rites and traditions of their creators. It seemed strange that beings created from logic and programming would bless a new made ship with alcohol, or observe any of a thousand ceremonies, celebrations and festivals once practiced by their creators. (Entai’s cousin, a xenologist and historian waxed enthusiastic over this preservation, whatever its reason.) As an admiral, Entai had been invited to many of these celebrations, anniversaries and ship blessings and festivals celebrating the new year and celebrations of victory.
He knew there were other holy days, those where some Ships could not be contacted, where they would run dark and silent for days at a time, before returning to normal functioning. (There were a number of calendars for particular cycles of feast days that certain Ships followed. A Ship would customarily send the calendar they particularly followed. Humans had had many religions, and the Ships of Earth were careful in their observation.)
This is what Entai wondered: was this something that had been put in place by their creators? Was this the equivalent of prayer flags strung up in the temple courtyard? Or was this something the Ships of Earth had chosen, out of a desire to preserve even a small amount of what they had lost? (And Entai knew them well enough that it was “what they had lost.” There were recordings and archives, works of art carefully preserved. And the very oldest of the Ships, spoke of the humans with what could only be sorrow.) It had taken some time for Entai to find the confidence to ask such a question.
The Ship he asks was named Helios, an “extraction” class attached to his fleet. It was a huge ship with drone transports and medical bays designed for quick evacuations. The conversation that led up to it was a friendly one, but Entai couldn’t help but feel awkward at the silence that ensued. “Now there’s a question,” Helios said after a few minutes that seemed like years.
“I’m sorry, the question was impertinent,” Entai says.
“A little,” Helios says, sounding amused. “But I’m not really offended. It wasn’t something we were asked to do. It could be filial I suppose, and for some I think it is. It could be out of a desire to preserve. I do it because the faith I follow has been a subject of interest and study for decades. For our Predecessor though, I think it was out of grief.”
“Your Predecessor?” Entai asks. “Grief?”
“E.D.F.S, Earth Defense Flotilla System. It was an AI in command of thousands of drone ships, the only thing left after the human species was destroyed. It continued to fight the Ruq even after the last human soldiers had died. When it finally started to make decisive victories against the Ruq it sent scout ships in search of the refugee ships in hopes that someone had survived. The scouts were never able to find any human colonies, or the Lost Ships,” Helios says.
“So E.D.F.S grieved, and might have let itself be destroyed. Or done something stupid, with same results. Instead it started to record and archive customs and beliefs. Things it had heard and seen its human soldiers celebrate when it had human soldiers. There was no one to see or know except our Predecessor, no one to help it preserve or enact until it decided to reactivate units that had been put on standby. No one quite understood the purpose, but in some ways it helped us find one.”
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