The Thinking Hull's Man

[Archie Phoenix 0]

With the silent tedium of Yellow Alert continuing and the Master Situation Monitor showing no signs of trouble, Archie was engrossing himself in the alien fleet data that was being fed to his engineering station by Ensign Cuda on the Bridge. The data was remarkable for one reason that jumped off the screen immediately as Archie glanced at it -- the ships of the alien fleet were all using organic hull technology.

 

Bioengineering was one of the few areas where the Renazians could boast greater advancement than their Federation allies. Renazian engineers had been incorporating living tissue into machinery long before their physicists mastered the atom. Nuclear power was predated by the use of biological processes to generate energy, and those processes were later integrated into more advanced form of power generation. The first data processing devices developed by the Renazians, over five centuries ago, utilized neural tissue to produce artificial intelligence almost as advanced as modern Federation computers. Medical technology benefited most, with many of the first great technological advances made by Renazian civilization focused on medical care and the prolongation of life; it was said that these were the first great leaps toward discoveries about the nature of the soul and the application of soul transference.

 

Naturally, bioengineering was one of Archie’s majors at the Academy; his education in the field had already begun with the Renazian tutors who’d handled his elementary education. Seeing these alien ships with hulls composed partly of living tissue was pure fascination to Archie. Even the Renazians, with their general aversion to interstellar travel, made little use of biotechnology in their fleet.

 

Analysis of the data confirmed that the ships’ hulls utilized neural cells, much like the bio-gel packs that drove the Arcadia computer’s AI protocols. If Archie speculated correctly, these hulls could ‘learn’ to adapt to an enemy attack. Initial enemy fire could do significant damage to the hull, but surviving cells could ‘inform’ surrounding cells of the nature of the attack and the means necessary to form a defense. A chain reaction of shared information could allow the entire ship’s hull to ‘evolve’ on the spot, modifying itself to resist any further usage of the energy form which was directed at it.

 

As Archie looked over the number of vessels amassed in this fleet, he speculated even further, wondering if the information could be communicated -between- ships, forming a sort of hive mind that could allow the entire fleet to instantly benefit from the adaptations made by a single ship’s hull. Could their, perhaps, be signs of telepathic potential among the network of neural cells running throughout each hull? A deeper analysis like that was over Archie’s head, even with his own study in the field, and the engineering stations were not equipped for such a search.

 

As Archie scanned the data, he spotted a notation placed by Ensign Cuda, a note to himself it seemed -- ‘discussion by helm and tactical. nanovirus?’ Archie’s brow peaked. Nanotechnology was another field he’d studied at the Academy. What were the Bridge officers discussing and what was Ensign Cuda thinking? He stood from his station and made for the turbolift, leaving Ensign Johnston in charge.