1 Beginning of a Hero

The future of the Milky way will be determined by one improbable birth, an event that was so improbable that those who believe in destiny could see the hand of fate at work. Our story starts in the year 2090 on the Space Station KMB12 in the outer reaches of the solar system nestled in the Kuiper belt. A merge pilot was about to embark on their year-long survey mission.

The development of merge pilots unbeknown to humans was an important step in their evolution. The humans had taken their first steps down one of the paths of enlightenment. In the year 2032 humans developed their first viable fusion-powered constant acceleration drive (FCAD). The FCAD opened up the solar system to the human race, yet sadly their bodies weren't capable of enduring the demands of long-term flight.

The attempts to replace humans with artificial intelligence (AI) were also unsuccessful as it didn't matter how much research went into advancing AI programming, human sentience and intuition could not be replicated.

The solution was to merge AI with a human pilot via a neural connection. This connection was so stressful that it could only be maintained while the pilot was sedated. This led to the development of a merge pod a self-contained life-support system that kept the merge pilot in a protected sedated state so that they could act as the sentience and intuition engine for the ship's AI.

Lyn Anderson was a typical merge pilot she had undertaken 5 years of intensive training and surgeries to ensure maximum compatibility with her ship the KMBS-A05 and its AI. She had signed a 10 mission contract which meant that she would be spending more than 10 years of her prime lifetime in a merge pod.

Like the other merge pilots, she engaged in the pleasure of life during her downtime and the days before she embarked on a mission. Little did she know that a pre-mission tryst would have such consequences for humanity.

On the fourth day of Lyn's mission, the first improbable event occurred, her conceptive implant and the pre-mission health scan both failed to prevent the fertilisation and implantation of an egg. The merge pods were never designed for pregnant women and the conditions were not optimal for the development of a healthy baby, but one of the prime programmed imperatives of the AI was to maintain the optimal health of its pilot. Therefore the AI adjusted the life-support systems to keep Lyn reading in the optimal ranges thus improving the development of the baby. The mission continued on schedule for the next 12 weeks flying around the Kuiper belt and scanning and cataloguing the different asteroids.

Day 50 of Lyn's mission, the second improbable event occurred, the ship was suddenly impacted by an intense and unknown form of energy. Disrupting and disconnecting Lyn from the neural connection.

"Connection lost, attempting to reconnect…., pilot not found, attempting to reconnect ... new pilot detected, connecting, connection failed, connecting, connection successful, calibration started, new pilot profile created for Null". The underdeveloped brain and the dormant consciences of a baby were ill-suited to be connected to a ship AI and were unable to interact in any meaningful way with the ship's AI causing the AI to adopt the default pilot profile.

Another life form was monitoring the situation from the direction where the unknown energy ray originated. This life form was a member of the Ophanim class of Angels, The Watcher was a life form of pure energy that appeared as a group of concentric rings spinning and rotating around a core of solid energy. The Watcher and all other members of the Angel race were not celestial beings but advanced alien lifeforms from another part of the galaxy. The angels had made contact with humanity 3000 years ago only to be mistaken as celestial beings.

It had been one of The Watcher's experiments that had caused the release of a concentrated ray of psychic energy. This energy was too powerful for Lyn's active conscience leaving her in a state of semi-death where she was physically alive but mentally dead. The baby had been protected from the ray due to its consciences still being dormant.

The baby was currently causing The Watcher some considerable problems as in the last 3000 years the council had declared humanity a race of potential, which protected them from outside interference from the higher races. The protocol for accidental interference was clear, removal of all evidence. This left The Watcher without many options, he could interfere with the ship destroying all evidence but that would result in the death of the baby. Another option was to send the ship back to KMB12, except they might detect residual psychic energy from the accident, an energy type humanity hadn't yet discovered. The third option was to take in the baby and destroy the evidence, but The Watchers ship was not set up to house a human, there was no food, water, oxygen, or room.

The Watcher had decided on adopting the baby as a pet, but even after a couple of millennia watching and observing humanity, he had no understanding of the needs of a human child.

The Watcher had access to advanced technology and had long ago set up an instant communication system that was integrated into the different information networks of earth. After researching possible baby-raising solutions on both the public and some more protected sections of the earth information network, they had settled on a solution.

Humans had generated many different methods for rearing children in space. Babies were considered a drain on resources and difficult to manage during long space journeys. The baby-rearing pods normally integrated life-support systems and networked virtual living environments that aim at accelerating both the physical, social, and mental development of children while using the least amount of resources.

Project NGSP was one such pod. It was a pod developed in secret by the Martian military in an attempt to create the next generation of super-soldiers, they would train the children from birth to be the ultimate soldier. This system had a few drawbacks like reducing the overall life span of the child and increasing mental instability but The Watcher was sure he could use his advanced knowledge to correct for these flaws. He was looking forward to having its guard human.