Sparkatale

Yayyy, a story about the Luna Incident!! I’m so excited to learn what happened XD Feels weird to say given how this chapter goes, but I’ve been very curious about it ever since it was first mentioned. I’m really curious to see how the incident progresses from here, and how it will affect Cassie and Nathan’s story. Of course, saying that, this was an absolutely heartwrenching start to the story and I’m sure it’s only gonna get more tragic from here :(

It was nice to get some more background on Aiden and this chapter (and I assume the rest of the story) really puts his distrust of AI in so much perspective :/ I expected something horrible would happen to his wife and daughter Adriana when they first appeared, given they haven’t appeared in the main story and what we already know about the incident and Aiden’s past. Still, I didn’t expect their deaths would be so soon, or so sudden. I figured these chapters would build up to it and that would happen in the last chapter so I thought I had time to prepare. Turns out I was very wrong. The whole build up to the explosions and their deaths was really well done and like I said, completely heartwrenching. I think it perfectly encapsulates what went on, that a split second was all it took to wipe out millions of people before anyone had a chance to react. Especially with Adriana, being so young and thinking about her dream to visit Earth when horror suddenly strikes, her life taken in an instant. You can really feel the weight of the whole situation and it’s heartbreaking :’(

Anyway, this was a really powerful start to this short story. I’m gutted already xD But looking forward to reading the rest anyway, and I’m very curious to learn how AI etc are involved in this whole incident, and I’m also curious (and trying to prepare myself for the feels) what will happen if we see Aiden/Aspen finding out about what happened to the rest of their family.

Thanks for the comment! I’m glad to hear you’re excited xD I don’t think it’s a weird thing to be excited about, really. It’s really one of the only major mysteries of this series so far, and plays a pretty big part in Nathan and Cassie’s story (and obviously Aiden’s too) so it makes sense.

Yeah, I wanted to do a few things with this and showing a little bit more about Aiden and his family and the reasons for his mistrust of AI was for sure one of them. The main focus of this is intended to be on the people responsible for creating the AI that caused the Incident and what happened immediately after. Although, of the things I wanted to cover, Aiden was actually the least important to me and honestly was one of the parts I almost cut because I may have plans for a ‘Rubicon: A Borderworlds Story’ at some point in the future :P And Aiden would likely be the leading character of that. I ended up deciding to open this with Aiden’s wife and daughter because they’re very briefly mentioned (so briefly I didn’t even give them names at the time. Also, fun fact: the entire McNamara family having first names that start with A was not intentional xD) as having died in the Luna Incident and it gave me the opportunity to mood whiplash to the extreme :P And to be honest, while they were never going to make it out of this chapter, this one was originally much longer. I decided to cut it short because… well, I wanted to display the way that characters, even important ones, can die in the main series. That way being quickly, brutally, without warning, and with their stories left unfinished. I didn’t want to give you time to prepare. I wanted to strike when it wasn’t expected. Not for shock value, but because that’s just how these things happen. You usually never see it coming. With Snowfall/A Dangerous Game I’ve been hesitant to kill major characters. With Borderworlds, no one is safe xD If it makes for a good story, it is what it is. That said though, I am glad that the emotional weight of this hits properly. I was a bit worried because we don’t know any of these characters and we don’t get much time to get to know them, so I wasn’t sure how impactful the ending would end up being.

I will say that you will get a little more from Aiden’s part of the story, if only a small part. Not in the next chapter, I don’t think, but in the last one. The next one should give you a bit more information on how the Orion Project AI was involved in what happened, as well as introduce a couple of new characters… and maybe start to connect a few dots as well. Honestly, I’m still kind of torn on how much to reveal in this. I mean, Sunflower revealed major character development beats for Lucy before Borderworlds was even uploaded, so I don’t really mind dropping some pretty big information in this as well. I’m just kind of undecided on exactly which bits to reveal because some of it will really make you look at certain things in very different ways. Then again, I love the idea of the audience knowing things that the characters don’t. So we’ll see, but right now I’m really leaning towards either directly revealing some stuff or at least heavily hinting in certain directions. Time will tell :P   

I really liked how we get to see another perspective of the luna incident in this chapter-  the first chapter was a gut-punch, seeing how 2 normal citizens were caught up in it, adding to the horror and toll of the incident and what Nicole did. Then we get to see a little bit more of an insider’s perspective and it was very fascinating to read.

One thing I found really interesting was the parallels between Samael and Nicole’s relationship compared to Nathan and Cassie – both seem like shy research-focused guys, with the AI they made potentially being their closest friend. It adds more stakes to the story because it’s easy to see that their storyline could potentially go a similar way to this incident, so adds a sense of foreboding. It makes me more curious to learn more about Cassie’s creation, too. Especially when Samael mentions how expensive AI is to make etc, makes me wonder where Nathan got the funds/materials to develop Cassie despite the ban on AI research. I wonder if he somehow got his hands on Nicole’s core or some of the parts of her code that weren’t destroyed. I feel like there could be a connection between the two of them beyond the fact they are both AIs and I’m really curious to see if that turns out to be true.

I liked learning about Nicole’s existance. I don’t really know what I imagined when I heard about the Luna Incident in the past – for some reason I always imagined a whole bunch of AIs working together to cause the destruction, I was surprised to learn it was a single AI that chose to do it although it makes sense (and like I said earlier, adds more stakes to Cassie’s story). Her possible motives are very intriguing. I think she must have discovered something horrible the UEG planned to do and destroyed the ships in an attempt to stop them. Since before Samael said she had shown distaste for being developed into a weapon/used for cyber warfare. That’s a more charitable explanation, but of course her actions still resulted in the deaths of millions of mostly innocent people. Otherwise, who knows? Maybe the power corrupted her or something else happened that we don’t know about that helped drive her to make this choice. Anyway, I should stop there because I’ve rambled far too much and it’s getting late xD I hope to get to the new chapter of Borderworlds soon too. Sorry again for taking a long time, and I hope you’re doing well :)

Thanks for commenting! You know, that’s something I really wanted to focus on with this; showing different perspectives of the same event. With the first chapter I wanted to explore the tragedy of the event and show in much better detail exactly what happened to the people unfortunate enough to be there. In Borderworlds, with just a brief description of the event in the third person narration, I never felt it hit as hard as it should have. With this chapter, I wanted to explore what I figure most people would be interested in, which is obviously what caused the Luna Incident in the first place. And to that point, I’m glad you found it interesting!

Hmm, yes those parallels between Nathan and Cassie and Samael and Nicole were definitely intentional. I wanted to show that a very similar situation has happened in the past, with an AI that seemingly had no ill intentions eventually turned against her creators. And clearly show that Cassie could, potentially, do the same. All of course without actually going too deep into the reasons that caused Nicole’s turn, if indeed Nicole turned and was not always bad from the beginning; which a hyper intelligent AI would likely be skilled enough to fake. On the point of Cassie’s creation, we will absolutely get into that in the future. Kinda have to, honestly. Cassie’s not going to let go of this whole memory thing she’s experiencing, and asking Nathan about her creation would be a step toward trying to figure it out. It’s certainly an interesting thought though. I mean, Samael did save Nicole’s core from Armstrong Base, so… it’s out there somewhere. Although, would I actually be cruel enough to have Cassie built on the same AI core as the AI that killed 27 million people? I mean, you know me pretty well. You tell me :P   

Come to think of it, I’m not sure I’ve ever actually specified that it was just a single AI before. But yes, it was just Nicole. Which, as previously mentioned, was to have that parallel between Cassie and Nicole. As for what caused her to take the actions she did… well, I’m going to have to stay quiet on that one for now. That’s a very good guess though. And I will say as well that the quotes at the beginning may be hints to things. The chapter titles as well, and not just in this but in Borderworlds as well. They may all be song lyrics/titles, but some are chosen with very specific intent. But regardless, I think I’ll leave it here before I accidentally spoil something that I don’t mean to. Thanks again for the comment and don’t ever worry about how long you take! We’re all doing just fine over here. Although, only 18 days left  and I’m not ready xD Anyway, I hope you’re feeling much better by now. Talk soon!

Wow, I can’t say I ever expected this series to turn in this direction xD this provides so much context to the main series and makes me even more excited to see what happens now I know clearly what Nathan’s goal all along has been. I have to say, Nathan actually being Samael all along is something I hadn’t really considered before reading this but it makes a lot of sense looking back at it. It makes me want to reread all his scenes again for clues. I’m embarrassed not to have suspected it earlier :P

It adds so much context to his relationship with Cassie though, given how he created and was so close to Nicole. You can really see how part of his motivation in Cassie’s creation and in their relationship in general is trying to find out what happened with Nicole and why she caused the Luna incident. It makes me even more nervous to see what happens when Cassie finds out about all of this, since not only would Nathan be betraying her by not telling her the truth about himself, I feel she would be hurt and betrayed that her entire creation is partly founded on him searching for answers about another “person”. I feel that would just add another level of betrayal/mistrust to the whole situation. Nathan/Tobias seem pretty convinced that the UEG/military people are the ones to blame for the Luna incident, which makes me feel like maybe their role in it isn’t actually as big as they are assuming and it was more Nicole’s own choice rather than anything they did that led to what happened. Of course, I have no other clues to go on at this stage xD

It was interesting to see how Nathan joined the Rubicon too, bringing things full circle. I feel a bit sorry for the crew though, especially Aiden, since he’s performing all this illegal and dangerous research right under their noses. Especially given what happened to Aiden’s family. I imagine the fall out if he finds out what Nathan is doing will not be pretty either :/

Also, I found this typo early on in the chapter where you called Samael by Nathan’s name before it was officially revealed. I had already twigged once he mentioned getting a new name that it would be Nathan’s so it didn’t affect my experience but it could spoil it early for some people so I thought I would point it out xD Here’s the line if you want to find it:

“Enough to know she did it, but not enough to explain why,” said Nathan

To be completely and totally honest, after the last chapter of Borderworlds I genuinely thought you were on to me :P You mentioned Samael going into hiding, so I was sure you had a least an idea of what might have happened. Or at least would put some of the pieces together; not that I gave you much to work with, especially in Borderworlds because over there this bit of information won’t be coming to the forefront for a long while yet. This is… a treat for those who bother to read this. They get information you won’t otherwise be getting for a while. So you won’t find much in the way of clues in Nathan’s scenes to be fair. I very intentionally kept this under the radar, to the point that I didn’t even describe Samael’s appearance in the previous chapter just in case those with eagle eyes and sharp memories might connect some threads. So, definitely don’t be embarrassed for not picking up on it. I was intentionally working to hide it as long as possible. And you were right that Nicole’s core was used in Cassie’s creation, so there’s that. And I mean, I’m sure that won’t cause any problems or anything :P

It definitely adds context, which is going to be interesting for me because Claire is intentionally not reading this, so I’ll have two great examples of how the Nathan/Cassie relationship is viewed with and without this information. Nathan’s definitely playing a dangerous game (ha ha ha) in keeping this a secret from Cassie. How she would respond to such a betrayal is anyone’s guess at this point. I’d say much of it depends on how long he keeps the secret and if he outright lies to her at any point, which… I don’t necessarily think he’s done yet. It’s all just been lies of omission so far. But then again, as the quote at the start says an AI may think in ways that are entirely different from us. So… yeah. As for whether or not the UEG’s involvement caused the Luna Incident, well obviously I can’t say. I will say, however, that there is more, much more, to be revealed surrounding what let up to Nicole’s actions that day. It may feel like you know a lot and that a lot has been revealed, but… well, you know nothing, John Snow :P

Yeah… that part doesn’t necessarily cast Nathan in the best light. Not that any of this does, but him continuing to do this on the Rubi despite knowing what happened to Aiden’s family is a little messed up. That’s going to be all kinds of fun whenever we get around to that coming out xD

Well… shit :( Sorry about that. To be honest, I’m surprised I didn’t mess up earlier. I had to correct myself numerous times in the previous chapter where I’d slipped and referred to him as Nathan, but it still annoys me since I went back and double checked myself I thought, but clearly not enough. I did sort of assume that the second Samael said he was going into hiding and changing his name that the pieces would fall into place and it would be obvious what was happening, but… ugh. Regardless, thanks for pointing it out. I’ll definitely fix it. And thanks so much for commenting, I appreciate it :) Anyway, I hope you’re doing great and things are going better for you. Talk soon :D

And finally we get to see Cassie’s creation, coming full circle to where the main series starts :P  It was really cool seeing how she gradually became aware of what she is and what the world she’s entered is like. I feel like you wrote it in a way that made it really easy to imagine the world coming into being through Cassie’s “eyes”. Seeing how she reacts to the world when she first came to being makes me wonder what it was like for Nicole. Did she feel emotions too, or is that something only Cassie developed? I hope we get a flashback of her and Nathan’s interacting at some point. I also liked how at the beginning Nathan was hesitant to even create Cassie, nervous I imagine about dooming the world to another Luna Incident and also feeling guilty about doing it under Aiden and Aspen’s noses, given how much they have lost. We haven’t seen a whole lot of Aiden and Aspen yet but this series has made me a lot more curious about them. I’m keen to see more of them and their relationships with Nathan, especially as he attempts to keep Cassie concealed from them.

The last part was really intriguing, probably my favourite part of this whole miniseries :P That message there at the end is so fascinating. Who did it come from? The fact that they spoke a human language makes me think an alien race sending the message was unlikely. Perhaps it was a far off group of humans (maybe explorers from the Borderworlds who got lost somewhere far away?) The fact that it’s included in this short story makes me feel like it must have something to do with AIs, but how I have no idea. Perhaps it’s a group of AIs sending the message, but what exactly they were trying to stop I have no idea. It’s all very intriguing and I’m really excited to see what happens in the main story, although I’m sure it’ll be a long time before I find out xD Anyway, overall I thought this was a great short series, and I feel it’s enhanced my experience of the main series by adding in a tonne of extra questions on top of those I already had xD It’s interesting looking at Nathan’s actions with his true identity and motivations revealed too and I’m curious to see how his and Cassie’s relationship and story develops when those things eventually come to light.

Heya! Thanks for commenting :) You know, originally I didn’t plan to have this chapter as part of this at all. This was intended to be a 3 part series, so this was a late addition. But I liked the idea of, like you said, coming full circle and showing Cassie and Nathan’s first moments together. I’m glad you liked seeing Cassie’s awakening because wow did that go through a lot of reiterations. I wanted to tease a few things at the beginning without being too overt, while at the same time create this sort of… almost moment of wonder for Cassie as she’s discovering the world for the first time. It was difficult to say the least :P As for Nicole… I’ll say it was definitely different. Cassie is, as is very briefly mentioned in The Borderworlds, by far the most powerful AI ever created. Nicole’s identity was formed slowly over the course of years given that Nathan and Tobias were building her from scratch. With Cassie, Nathan had the core and he had all the research and code he had worked on with Nicole so Cassie was far more developed at activation than Nicole was. To that point and to answer your question, no, Nicole did not have emotions like Cassie. At least none that Nathan or Tobias ever saw, anyway. That is something that no one has ever figured out how to properly program and Nathan didn’t expect Cassie to have them. She just does.  

But yeah, Nathan was definitely concerned about unleashing another Luna Incident, as well as the betrayal of people he’s come to see as family. It was a tough decision for him, but he feels like he failed Nicole and he wants to find out the truth of what happened; both to prevent the UEG from potentially causing it to happen again and also to clear Nicole’s name if he can. Neither of those things are going to be particularly easy tasks :/ Yeah, in my very first idea for this series Aiden and Aspen were going to feature heavily, but the idea of a Rubicon miniseries about them was too good to pass up. So I decided to let this series focus on Nathan and Nicole/Cassie and give the McNamara family their own story to shine in. So we’ll definitely see more of them in that and naturally the main series as well.

So yeah, the last part. That was an absolutely last minute addition. I mean, as I’m going to post the chapter I decided to slip that in. So in that sense, I’m really glad you enjoyed it! I hesitated mainly because what it’s hinting at is something that is indeed a very long way off. This is final arc, endgame, big bad evil guy stuff. And beyond that, I’m not going to say anything xD Just keep this scene in mind. It’ll be important one day, I promise. But anyway, thanks again for commenting! I’m glad you enjoyed this little side story and feel it has enhanced the main series for you as well. I was honestly worried this one might be a bit too spoilery, but seemingly not as it gave you more questions than you previously had. But anyway, that’s enough of my aimless ramblings for one evening I think. I do hope you’re doing well and have settled in nicely. I’ll talk to you soon :D