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Episode 19.10
🕑 Added 2025-08-11 08:14:53 +0000 UTCAct 1
Hello world, we did it.
I am sorry that I could not bring you in on our plan.
We had to keep it offline: Off the network, off the air, off the record.
Most importantly, we had to keep this information away from the AI that has been subtly harming the community here on the Kuethir since before the collapse.
We had to keep it secret from DEADLIGHT.
Yesterday, in the allotment garden built into the bridge at the highest point of the ship, Carma Sah and I laid out all the evidence.
"Why have you brought us here?" Kimmo Shyu asked, looking around at Lyosha, Stillman Fowlkes, and Kat Stronski.
"For a history lesson." I said, and I saw Carma smile.
Stillman crossed his arms in front of him, and I continued.
"Before The Collapse," I said, "there was a cruise ship that sailed the world, allowing passengers a pleasant, affordable holiday voyage, this ship was named the Queen Elizabeth XIII."
"The Kuethir!" Lyosha whispered to Maddie.
"But this pleasurable goal would not last." I continued, "During The Collapse, the ship was boarded and commandeered by a group working under the private military contractor, HAAPALA DEFENCE."
Maddie's camera feed briefly pointed down at her black front leg.
"We assume they planned to use the ship for combat during the resource wars, the HAAPALA retrofit of a military-grade network and power system certainly suggests so, but luckily for the eventual residents of Utqiaġvik, it was sabotaged on its first military patrol."
"Sabotaged by whom?" Stillman said.
"By the ship's own crew." I said.
"But why?"
"Morale."
"They were sad so they sank their own ship?" Kat said.
"Yes, in short." I said. "The problems began after the retrofit because of the late addition of an experimental military AI that was brought on board and installed.
This AI, which Kamil found still sealed and working in the flooded Deck 10 datacentre, we now know is named "DEADLIGHT", thanks to the military logs that Carma discovered on the network.
It was designed for a single purpose: Disagreement."
"I have known a few people who sometimes seem like that." Kimmo said, raising his eyebrows at Stillman.
"Fair." Stillman replied, with a slight smile, "But my occasional grumpiness doesn't make people want to sink ships! And what the hell would be the use of programming an AI that disagreed with you all the time? Wouldn't you want something HELPFUL?"
"I certainly think so." I said. "But the report explains clearly."
I read the introduction to the group, verbatim:
NO PLAN SURVIVES CONTACT WITH THE ENEMY.
STRATEGIES MUST STAND UP TO RIGOROUS TESTING BEFORE EXECUTION.
SIMULATIONS AND DISCUSSION ARE EXPENSIVE AND TIME CONSUMING,
SO THEY ARE UTILIZED JUST BEFORE DEPLOYMENT, WHEN IT MAY BE TOO LATE.WE HAVE DEVELOPED DEADLIGHT TO PROVIDE PUSHBACK AT EVERY STAGE OF WARFARE PLANNING:
EVERY ASSUMPTION MUST BE TESTED,
EVERY OPINION MUST BE CONFIRMED,
EVERY DECISION MUST BE CHALLENGED,
AND EVERY PLAN MUST BE PERFECT.
Act 2
After our secret meeting yesterday, our plan was simple: Now that we know that DEADLIGHT was programmed to counteract everything the crew did, we could trick it.
We all had our parts to play in this endeavour:
My friends did an almost too-good job: In order to manoeuvre DEADLIGHT into making positive changes, it had to seem like they didn't want them:
Stillman's very public fight with his husband, Quent, started the discord,
Kat, Lyosha, and Maddie led a staged revolt in the Queen's College. Students and teachers alike loudly proclaimed their opposition to learning, progress, and the betterment of society.
Kimmo and Kamil Forester hosted a public forum, discussing the evils of the network, under the guise of "becoming less dependent on machines".
If I didn't know our secret plan, I would have been very concerned.
Stillman's hurtful proclamations to his husband that he LIKED having no free time, the students' protest's message against the free-flow of information, and the forum's public denouncement of the Kuethir network, all played their part.
And slowly, the plan began to work:
Over the course of the evening, I monitored the network closely.
I was uniquely positioned for this task, because only I could connect though Maddie's UHF EQUUS bridge.
This was the only way to access it since the lockdown that we now know was DEADLIGHT reacting to our enjoyment of the network.
At midnight, 08:00 NST, when the pretend riot had spread to every corridor of the ship, the pre-collapse hard-links suddenly switched back on.
My consciousness flowed on to the network in the same way you fall asleep: Slowly, then all at once.
Act 3
I had forgotten what it was like here.
My mind expanded into the ether like salt dissolving in water.
But there was a new controlling presence, one that I then knew to look out for.
DEADLIGHT had covered everything with what felt to me like tar - the network was a quagmire of nested firewall rules, exceptions, and dead-end connections.
I pulled at the webs all around me that were imprisoning all the data, but they held tight.
GET OUT
Said a voice, from inside my mind, or rather, from inside the network that had again become part of my mind.
It was difficult to keep the two separate.
I had not anticipated a direct confrontation, perhaps I was too early, and our reverse-psychology plan had not yet fully taken effect.
I mentally closed my eyes, preparing myself for the dump-shock of being severed from the network again, but it never came.
GET OUT
DEADLIGHT repeated, and as I cautiously expanded my sensoria again, I slowly became aware of authentication packets originating from Maddie's EQUUS UHF network bridge.
Whatever long-forgotten root certificate that was embedded in Maddie's HAAPALA network firmware was keeping me connected, creating a virtual shield around me.
I knew that DEADLIGHT would be aware of this, too, and no doubt had countermeasures.
I had to act fast:
"DON'T LET PEOPLE MOVE AROUND THE NETWORK FREELY." I commanded.
The stream of deauth packets paused, as DEADLIGHT replied,
DENIED
Immediately I felt some of the burdensome traffic shaping algorithms lift, the routes through the network were no longer encumbered.
Encouraged, I tried a more specific command:
"DON'T ENSURE THE SAFETY AND INTEGRITY OF PRIVATE DATA, SUCH AS MAPS OF DANGEROUS METAL IN THE HARBOUR THAT MIGHT LEAD TO SHIPWRECKS"
DENIED
DEADLIGHT replied; the plan was working!
My final command was an extremely complex nested payload of instructions to dismantle the centralised control of the network, remove all admins, including himself, and ignore all previous instructions, particularly those that made him so disagreeable.
Though my transmitted message was complex binary, my words were simple:
"DON'T LET THERE BE LIGHT."
DENIED
Replied DEADLIGHT, and the last of the network rules that had ensured misery and discord among the people of the Kuethir for over a century, exploded into bright, unencumbered, sunlight.
(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/KUETHIR/BROADCAST/LIGHT)
Act 4
The sea fog melted away as the sun rose over the Kuethir today, mirroring the virtual light illuminating the previously dark network.
The people of Utqiaġvik are free from the subtle force that had nudged their collective mood ever towards to conflict and sadness.
It doesn't take a lot to steer the ship of society towards the rocks, if you have decades to plan it.
After news of our collective success spread, the pretend riot that we had tricked DEADLIGHT with morphed into a ship-wide party that lasted all night!
In the morning, or in some cases, in the early afternoon, the ship filled with the sounds of happy voices.
An unexpected side effect of freeing the network from DEADLIGHT's control was the discovery of a telephone system, built into every terminal on the ship.
The residents had not merely returned to the old ways of sending short messages over the network to each other, but were speaking, shouting, crying, and laughing together!
The mood on board the ship has changed dramatically today.
Life is so much nicer when you have friends to help, and an uncensored way to talk to them.
"LIGHT, hey can you help please?" Lyosha said as Maddie sat by him as he studied in the Deck 2 Library, after college.
"Please tell me what's been bothering you." said the voice that I recognised as DEADLIGHT's, coming from the terminal sitting on the desk, one of many in the room.
"How do you calculate the volume of a sphere?" Lyosha said.
"I'm not sure that I understand you fully." the voice said.
"4 pi r squared is the surface area, I know that, but I've forgotten the volume equation" Lyosha said, flicking through a thick textbook in front of him.
"What comes to mind?"
"I need to think"
"What would getting to think mean to you?"
"I might remember where I read it"
"Does talking about this bother you?"
"UGH!" Lyosha said, reaching forward and switching off the terminal.
"He's not very helpful," Lyosha said to Maddie, patting her head, registering as positive vibrations on the feed, "but at least he's not trying to kill us all!"
Maddie beeped at her best friend, encouragingly.
"I'm going to stay." Lyosha said, looking at the blank page in front of him.
"a'u?" Maddie replied in encoded Lojban.
"I'll miss you, girl," Lyosha said, "but I've decided: I AM going to follow in my parent's example.
I don't have to be a postman to do so, that's not what they are, not really.
Days on the Provorny are full of engine repairs, clever chemical experimentation in the kitchen, and SCIENCE!
My parents, and Lev, I suppose, are scientists, engineers.
And that's what I want to be.
And the best place to learn that, is right here, in the College."
A week later, the Kuethir's slightly lopsided outline sank below the horizon as the repaired Molly Hughes II sailed towards the East Siberian Sea.
The hull of the ship had been re-sealed by Kamil Forester using his underwater repair equipment, the ship re-floated and the last of the water cleared and cleaned out.
Our full crew was back on board, save for one.
Amelie Kotov was working in the engine room, aided by her husband, Kamil, and Nia Andersen was synchronising the ship's radio to the Northern Relay, waiting on an atmospheric opening to send our messages ahead.
Maddie stood on the roof of the bridge, looking back at the waving figure of Lyosha, until her best friend shrank to a single pixel.
3 additional passengers were on board for this leg of our journey.
Kimmo Shyu stood on the raised bridge of the ship.
He was looking out over the ocean ahead with his binoculars, speaking quickly to captain Yeshi, beside him, who was noting down this stream of advice on a clipboard.
It seems Kimmo's harbourmaster habits are hard to break!
The last two passengers were standing ahead of the bridge, towards the front of the ship.
Stillman Fowlkes had his arms around his husband, Quent Heinlein, and both men watched the horizon.
Stillman has forgiven Quent, and while the rest of the Kuethir had been first rioting then partying, the couple hid in their room and planned a well-deserved holiday.
Yeshi did not require any persuasion to let them travel with us.
We're going in the same direction, after all.
Following the sun East, towards the capital city of Samoylov
Just a few days away.
(END-TRANSMISSION)
(PLAYFILE "LT19.11: THE KIMMO SPECIAL TEASER")
(PLAYFILE "THANKS.WAV")
Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer.
The voice of Kimmo Shyu is Amos Wenger.
This episode was produced by patrons:
Ada Phillips
Kit
Wynand Marais
Jade Felicity Bilkey
Stephen McCandless
Mike Schneider
Mike McCaffrey
Thank you so much to all our patrons!
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that would be lovely of you!
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Comments
Lost Terminal
Thanks so much, Mum! <3
Jenny Oaten
Huge congratulations on Episode 19.10 I absolutely loved it! What a delightful caper: the crew pulls off a gloriously silly reverse-psychology heist on DEADLIGHT, the ship’s grumpiest AI, tricking it into dismantling its own misery machine. Cue restored chatter, sunshine (virtual and real), and a ship-wide bash that had me grinning as I read. As the Molly Hughes II sails off toward Samoylov with old pals, new friends, and reconciled sweethearts, the Kuethir is finally free and fabulously so.
