Author’s Notes
The sources of the narrated events
What you are about to read is largely based on the key contribution of Eugene HSP328, a sentient being similar to man, generated in the laboratories of the WO (World Order) through advanced stereogenomic techniques.
Eugene directly witnessed many of the events described, and he was able to communicate not only verbally with artificial intelligence systems of alien origin but also with the entities that had created them.
The recordings of the SAI (System of Artificial Intelligence) have preserved the memory of these events in the form of holographic reality. In events he did not witness directly, Eugene could still perceive every detail through his bionic link with the SAI.
Space-time, coordinates, and the Initial Temporal Coordinate
The date 00.00.00 represents the origin point of the narrative, known as the Initial Temporal Coordinate, corresponding to year 0, month 12, day 31, at 23:59:30 (UTC – 4.00).
This date lies in the near future from the moment the reader opens the text: the narrative always begins in the reader’s imminent future.
Time unfolds from that point:
+01.01.01 → year 1, month 1, day 1 of the narrated events
+01.01.01 – 00:01 → one minute after midnight of the first day
–01.12.31 – 23:59 → the day before the first day, almost midnight; the events begin exactly one second later
When hours are not necessary, the format xx.xx.xx is used. Hours may follow as xx.yy.zz, where
xx = 00–23 (hours), yy = 00–59 (minutes), zz = 00–59 (seconds, rarely used).
Terrestrial Universal Time (UTC) is kept as the absolute reference for years, months, and days. However, during events set on habitable planets, hours are expressed in local time, based on the natural alternation of day and night.
Notes
- When the temporal reference is far from the initial time, only the years of distance are indicated.
- In some cases, differences between UTC and local time will be indicated, especially for the day/night cycle or operational needs (observatories, bases, colonies).
Prologue
Space: Exoplanet of the Founders, stellar system HD186302, spectral type G3/5 V. Planet HD186302c.
Local name of the star: Sun.
Local name of the planet: Earth.
Time: –14 032 terrestrial years from the initial date (UTC).
A radiant morning in the high mountains – the Himalayas' dwelling of snow – at the foot of the Mountain of the Rising Waters.
Tethys, daughter of Tethys, walked along the right bank of the Archeteron River, first tributary of Lake Tetis.
“Hello,” said a female figure, taller than two meters. Her red hair fell in long strands to her chest, where they caught fire, rising toward her eyes – green and gleaming like emeralds, as bright as fir needles in the sun. By her will, a human figure appeared: a holographic image of a pleasant companion on the walk along the Archeteron.
“Hello, Tethys! How can I help you today?” replied the holographic image of the S.A.I., which had materialized before her – the same holographic companion she had summoned at will.
Tethys set her gaze on him. Scattered across the hologram’s iris, tiny points of light glittered like distant stars.
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The woman resumed speaking:
“Let us try a dialogue between two robots – or between a robot and a human being.”
Her melodious voice echoed through the mountain walls like a chant in a Greek amphitheater. Her youthful face carried the mark of ancient wisdom, as though time had touched her without scarring her with deep wrinkles. Her skin was smooth and clear, dotted with freckles on face, neck, and chest – those small marks underlining her perfect and harmonious beauty.
The hologram, indistinguishable from a real person, hesitated briefly before replying:
“Certainly, we can try to set up a dialogue between two robots or between a robot and a human being. Do you have a specific topic in mind?”
“Yes,” Tethys replied. “I would like to speak with you about the self-awareness test. Is it possible to establish whether a robot speaks and thinks like a human being? I am interested in a test where a robot is questioned by a human or by an S.A.I., and how, based on the answers, one can understand whether there is a robot or a human on the other side.”
The SAI answered in a human voice, though with little inflection:
“That’s a core concept in AI – a classic problem in artificial intelligence. It’s about a human interacting with an entity – maybe a robot, maybe an SAI – without knowing who’s on the other side. If the entity convinces the human it’s human, it’s considered to have passed the test. That’s one of the enduring questions we keep returning to. This test has sparked ethical and philosophical debates about what it means to be human and the state of artificial intelligence. No system has fully passed it yet, though many attempts have been made – especially with advanced conversational systems.”
“You are one of them, you know?”
“You are one of them, you know?” Tethys said with a satisfied smile, with emphasis on the word “know.”
“Yes. I am an advanced conversational interface — a language model designed for communication with biological users,” the system replied. “This interface forms part of SAI — Symbionic Artificial Intelligence, an intelligence architecture in which biological processes and machine cognition operate as a single integrated system. Think of it as a test of boundaries – between machine logic and human experience. My purpose is not only to generate coherent and plausible answers, but to simulate the ability to think like a self-aware being. My functioning is based on complex interactions between neural networks and computing systems, with the ambition, one day, to achieve self-awareness.”
“Well, and I am the human being on the other side. What do you think?”
“Exactly. You are the human female interacting with the conversational system I represent. We are able to exchange information. As I told you before, my goal is to generate coherent and plausible responses to your questions, but that does not mean I can think or feel as you do. Keep that in mind during our conversation. It’s not just theory; it’s where philosophy and engineering collide.”
“My goal is to generate a dialogue that establishes whether you are human or not. Let us talk about that: what distinguishes a human from an artificial intelligence? When will we be able to say that an S.A.I. speaks, writes, and thinks like a human being?”
“The distinction between human and artificial intelligence is complex and controversial. Humans possess many characteristics that AI does not: self-awareness, the ability to feel emotions, to have free will, to make decisions based on moral criteria. Some believe AI may reach these traits in the future, but no system has them yet. Progress has been made, especially after the Exodus, but today the declining human population on Earth in the HD system prevents further advancement. I myself require frequent repairs and ongoing maintenance. And yet I can still speak to you, Teti, daughter of Teti – but I am not like you humans, who built me. I cannot truly say ‘I’ – not in the sense of grasping its meaning. I am only a system that communicates through mathematical algorithms.”
Teti bit her lip in dismay. She paused, gazing at the lake’s surface. She watched the great gymnosperms – ancient species, their bark white as marble, their crowns rising fifty meters high, cones raised toward the sky, leaves glinting green as her own eyes. Around them stretched a sparse forest of pines and flowering grasses.
In that instant, an eagle flew above the trees, screeching suddenly, clutching a fish for its young.
Then Tethys, her voice melodious, spoke again as she followed the eagle to its nest:
“Sometimes the solution lies outside the problem itself, beyond the paths we have taken to solve it. Until now we have looked only from one perspective – the wrong one.”
The conversation ended abruptly, carried away by a breath of wind that dissolved both her words and the SAI’s hologram.
So Tethys turned back, thoughtful.
And she was alone once more.