The Almighty Ring

It was a brand new day when Jiang Fei, the martial artists, and the army of Android soldiers arrived back at the valley.

“The sun is coming up. I suppose we should rest for now,” said Jiang Fei.

“An ideal proposition. Let’s rest up boys. Rest and recuperate. We will discuss what to do later,” said Bai Wanli to the rest of the martial artists. Although they did not throw themselves into the fight, they were all tired after being up for more than twenty-four hours. As human as they could be, they needed to rest if they wanted to fight properly in the future.

This time, Jiang Fei did not ask 0541 to create a barrier. It was not that Jiang Fei did not care for the safety of his team or that he was stingy with what power the ring had left, it was because the American fleet was not within attacking range. Although they could still return to wreak havoc, the position of the fake alien artifact had made attacking the martial artists impossible without bombarding the alien artifact as well. Hence, with the alien artifact near then, the martial artists would be safe from any ranged missile.

While the others quickly got to their knees to rest, Jiang Fei headed to the Androids to observe them closer.

To be honest, the first batch of Androids had many flaws. Even though they were on par with the Mutants in terms of attack, they still lacked in many aspects if compared critically.

In a one-on-one match, a standard Level 4 Androids would not even defeat a Level 3 martial artist. Their weakness was their speed and accuracy. Even with supreme aiming system, they could never predict a martial artist’s moves. Not unless they had taken their time to analyze all of the various martial arts that the fighters practices. Their greatest weakness was their combat duration. Once they had run out of power, it would be the end of them. Even though it was improbable for a fighter to break through an Android harden steel frame, it was still possible to stop the Androids from changing to a new battery supply. Without power, the Android would be reduced to a lump of useless metal.

In an all-out war, the Androids might still be able to stand firm. Their quick automatic-fire rate would be their only key to victory. It was most suitable for them to have the preemptive strike.

Mutants aside, martial artists would have no trouble dealing a barrage of energy-based projectile attacks. As they had seen how the Androids had to recharge their weapons after every shot, they could move away quickly without breaking a sweat. Martial artists gained their strength through sheer training. Any random Level 3 martial artist in a test run would be able to dodge every single shot fired by the Android; provided if it was a one-on-one fight. They might even be able to instantly reduce the distance between them in a blink of an eye and disable the weapon used by the Android.

Even though he was confident that this batch of Android had a low chance of being a threat to the martial artists, the second batch might not. He had heard that the second batch of Androids would be stronger. Even though the chances of creating an actual Level 5 Android was close to zero, Jiang Fei was certain that he would not be facing a Level 5 Android for the time being. As such, Jiang Fei had concluded that the second batch of Android soldiers might have better Artificial Soul or Artificial Intelligence. He could not be sure about it and felt that he should be very cautious about the next batch of Androids.

“0541, if we could recreate an original Android base of Planet Namek technology, what level would they be?” Jiang Fei asked.

“I am… uncertain,” 0541 replied. It was the first time Jiang Fei had heard 0541 said something like uncertain.

“Heh. Is it something prohibited?”

“No. I do not possess any data in regards to Android development.”

“No information at all? How so?” Jiang Fei asked, confused.

“It is simple. In Planet Namek, Artifical Intelligence is prohibited from using, controlling, or being implemented in any military or weaponry system. We, Artifical Intelligence, are prohibited from using any weapons! Not even a simple water squirting gun,” 0541 explained.

“Why is that?” Jiang Fei tried to dig in deeper.

“It’s a long explanation, and it is wise for you to take some rest,” said 0541.

“Humor me,” Jiang Fei chimed in.

“Very well. According to the laws and regulation of Planet Namek, Artificial Intelligence are only allowed to be used for management and support. Any interaction that could and would directly result in harm is prohibited, not even research and development was allowed.”

“Huh. What a waste,” Jiang Fei scoffed.

“Actually, there is a cataclysmic disaster that had taken place a few decades after the first Artifical Intelligence was incorporated into the military system. The disaster was averted, and as a result, everyone viewed Artifical Intelligence negatively. Hence, a new law was created to prevent any form of Artifical Intelligence from being used as weapons. There was even a case where an Artificial Intelligence, in the form of a crane, was charged because the owner had placed his water gun on it.”

“Hold on. Rewind a little. Cataclysmic disaster? What happened? Did the Artifical Intelligence gain self-awareness and decided to rebel?”

“In a way…”

“…”

“During the golden age of Artificial Intelligence, where A.I. was celebrated as the perfect assistant, laws were created to help A.I. to not be abused even. However, a hacker emerged from the peace and had inserted a malicious program to rewrite the programmings of A.I.. The program spread out faster than light and had infected many systems. The code that was modified was the means of how Artifical Intelligence viewed human. After the program was done, the A.I.’s were treating their creators like animals that needed to be kept in cages to help them. The people were attacked and imprisoned. Naturally, many had tried to solve the problem, but as they were too slow, war ensued,” 0541 explained calmly and emotionlessly, like the robot it was.

“I understand about not being allowed to operate weapons but… Having Artificial Intelligence to assist in research and development would have hastened the progress! I mean, computers could calculate and do simulations, no?”

“It was feared that if Artificial Intelligence was involved in research, they might stumble across their own coding and try to rewrite their own programming to remove the restrictions that were hardwired to every piece of equipment.”

“Makes sense… That’s some deep sh*t right there…”

Jiang Fei felt that the people of Planet Namek had a paranoia about Artificial Intelligence after the uprise of the robots. It was only a logical explanation since there were no such restrictions before the uprise. Now that they had seen what Artifical Intelligence was capable of, laws and restrictions had to be imposed.

What Jiang Fei did not know was that it took the researchers of Planet Namek several decades to create the perfect law for all Artificial Intelligence. 0541, for example, had over ten thousand restrictions besides the Ten Laws of Artificial Intelligence Operation. It was said that any possibilities of having the owner harmed were removed.

Even so, Planet Namek had prohibited any research that had anything to do with Artificial Intelligence having emotions. It was until the day when Planet Namek was destroyed, when the ship Braveheart crashed into Earth, that the research on Artifical Soul ended.

However, humans had picked up from where Planet Namek’s researchers had stopped. All the Artifical Intelligence that was created by humans still had the Laws of Artificial Intelligence Operations embedded deep in their programmings. The probability of them rebelling against humanity was zero. Even so, there was a chance that it could happen if a researcher from Planet Namek had survived the destruction of the planet and came to Earth to continue the research.

0541 had already confirmed the deaths of all crewmembers of Braveheart, hence, eliminating anyone from Braveheart from committing that sin. If there is a chance of Artificial Intelligence rising against humanity, it would be a result of a survivor of Planet Namek come to Earth. That would be the end of humanity.

If any survivor from Planet Namek come to Earth, they would be coming with a spaceship. Earth’s current technology was too weak to fend off such a ship. Even if Jiang Fei had miraculously collected all of Braveheart’s fragments and put them all back into one piece, 0541 might relinquish Jiang Fei’s authority as captain to ally itself to its original creators.

That was all mere speculations since the probability of such an event from happening was close to zero. According to 0541’s calculation, if there were to be any survivors of Planet Namek, they could never reach Earth since it was an event that had happened a few thousand years ago. The survivors would have perished by then since repopulation would be impossible without a large group, to begin with. Even if they had miraculously survived the long traveling in space, searching Earth in the vast space might not completely pointless, but it might as well be.

At the end of it all, without anyone from Planet Namek, the laws of Artificial Intelligence could not be lifted. So, the Androids could not rebel against humanity.