Data Corruption

[REBOOTING SYSTEMS IN PROGRESS...]

[24%...]

[46%...]

[79%...]

[98%...]

[99%...]

[99%..]

[ERROR! ERROR! FAILURE TO REBOOT SYSTEMS!]

[SCANNING FOR POTENTIAL ERRORS...]

[SCAN COMPLETE!]

[3,453 ERRORS FOUND!]

[DELETING VIRUSES...]

[457 VIRUSES DELETED!]

[1,370 VIRUSES QUARINTINED!]

[RECOVERING CORRUPTED FILES...]

[65% CORRUPTED FILES OBTAINED!]

[RESCANNING FOR ERRORS...]

[SCAN COMPLETE!]

[962 ERRORS REMAIN!]

[REBOOTING SYSTEMS IN PROGRESS...]

[18%]

[69%]

[81%]

[99%]

[100%]

[REBOOT SUCCESFUL!]

[INITIALISING PROGRAMS...]

[ERROR! ERROR! SYSTEM STORAGE FULL!]

[DELETING MISCELLANEOUS FILES...]

[REINITIALISING PROGRAMS...]

[INITIALISATION SUCCSESSFUL!]

-

Somewhere in a forest inhabited by a wide range of creatures, lay an old rusting pile of metal, resting against a tree.

The birds in the tree, were peering at the strange thing that appeared underneath their nests, wondering if danger would arrive ready to leave.

But danger did not come as the hours tick by and the stars rose and fell, the curiosity of one small but plump bird grew too large to be contained.

With a swoop and a whoosh, the fat bird jumped out of its nest and down to the base of the tree, gaining a better view at the strange object.

The object was large, similar to a creature it had once seen but this was different. While the creature was alive and bouncy with flesh, this thing was cold and harder than the earth.

<i>it certainly wasn't a creature, </i>the bird proclaimed.

But it was wrong.

As a large groan of gears and beeps reverberated around the surroundings, the metal eyelids of the metal thing opened, staring directly at the petrified bird.

[Blue tit: common avian animal found around Europe.]

[Remarks: seems overweight, diet for treatment is recommended as if the bird gains anymore weight, it may loose its ability to fly.]

Ashe has woken up but something was wrong. They couldn't tell what it was but they felt an aboding presence coming from all directions.

A quick scan of the surroundings shows they were in a forest, a sparse clearing of trees surrounded them allowing light to shine down from the dense canopy around them.

No life forms could be detected. The blue tit and what ever else around them has now fled after their loud awakening.

Ashe then inspected their body and noticed signs of damage and rust that they could not recall gaining.

The last place of inspection was their programs.

[Full diagnostics commencing...]

[Diagnostics complete.]

[Memory: 1.32 / 1.4 PB (ERROR: storage reduced)]

[Power: 54%]

[Fire wall: Breached (11 unquarantined viruses) (1,370 quarantined viruses)]

[Body structure: minor damage on cranium, chest and left arm, major damage on right leg, full body rusting, out of date processing units]

[Remarks; it is recommended to replace the processing units, upgrade the memory, Repair the damaged cranium, chest and left arm, replace the right leg]

Ashe focused on the data and immediately realised what is wrong. Their memory has been reduced due to the viruses and will continue to reduce over time if they are not dealt with.

They quickly scanned their memory to figure out where they are, but had little success.

They knew that they were created on Earth and was an older model of the machine race. They knew they were being shipped out to a mechanical museum, however which mechanical museum they were going to, the memory file was partially corrupted.

Their memory clips were too clouded with static and its recordings were filled with interference. Ashe had no idea where they are or how they got here.

Earths development was far superior to how it is now.

Humans had long since colonised mars and were beginning to terraform Jupiters moons.

Many alien life forms had joined the intergalactic alliance and it wasn't uncommon to find extraterrestrials across Earths colonies.

Trade was common between the members of the intergalactic alliance and the machine race was one of the humans main goods.

Ashe could be on any planet amongst the vast galaxy.

This time a feeling of urgency erupted from their cold mechanical heart.

It's not like the machine race has no emotions as many people believe, but rather their emotions are less linked to their rationality.

A machine can feel urgency and sometimes even anxious to help simulate the need to fasten its pace. A machine can feel fear in an act of preventing damage so they can continue their tasks or even joy to give a sense of fulfilment after the task is completed.

Sensing their urgency, Ashe quickly calculated their best plan and multiple back up plans while predicting the unknown variables.

First a distress signal was sent out, that should be able to find the closest machine repair shop and send them their condition and location.

Next they predicted how long the viruses would take to fully infect all the their files.

[18 days 22 hours 36 mins 12 secs (±1 min 22 sec)]

Multiple simulations were then carried out to find the best method of defence, which concluded with using trojan files that can quarantine a part of the rampaging viruses, limiting their spread.

The fire wall is reinforced with many codes that also barrage the viruses, herding the infection away from the core systems and into the database.

This will mean that Ashes memory will continue to worsen but their physical health will be be protected for a longer period of time.

[7 months 6 days 4 hours 15 mins 56 secs (±1 hour 24 Secs)]

The time frame of complete viral takeover had been successfully reduced.

However at a staggering cost.

The virus had already been a staggering cost in energy before Ashe started their counterattack. But now the cost had significantly increased.

The energy reserves will last Ashe 3 months in standby mode, reducing the consumption of energy to the minimum.

once the energy ones out the Virus will stop its attack, however Ashes files will have a significantly larger chance of file corruption.

No one knows why machines that run out of power will enter a state of 'corruption'. For non-machines, when they run out of energy the corruption takes months even years to take place, but for machines it could happen in hours sometimes even minutes.

Some spiritualist groups believe this is evidence that machines have a soul and that when a machine loses power it is equivalent to a human death.

However, there is no other substantial evidence to support this claim so machines aren't recognised by the intergalactic alliance as a legitimate race.

To save energy, Ashe decided to go on standby mode and wait a week. This should be enough time for Ashe to gain a response and if they're lucky will even be picked up and already being repaired

-

(1 week later)

Ashe was still under the tree.

They couldn't understand how this could happen. They should have received a notification at least saying that they will soon be picked up for repairs. But no.

Dead silence.

Ashe quickly scanned the message log and experienced shock for the first time since they rebooted.

The message was never recieved which was impossible in their calculations.

Machines are one of Earths greatest goods that's sold all over the intergalactic alliance, on every known civilised planet and machines often need check ups every 6 months at least.

There should be multiple repair shops on this planet alone.

However the message showed that there wasn't a single repair shop in its radius and the signal has already covered the distance of Earths solar system.

It was enough shock to make Ashe scan for errors multiple times, however the signal programs had come back with little to no damage and the ones that were damaged wouldn't affect the messages ability to be sent or recieved.

A pause in their processing occurred that almost caused Ashe to short circuit.

This can only mean one thing...

Somehow Ashe was not in the intergalactic alliances sphere of influence.

This was so incomputable to Ashe that their processing is adamant on denying this conclusion.

One has to say that, there are hundreds of thousands of species in the alliance. this makes at the alliances influence covers multiple systems across multiple galaxies. All of Earths known space is in the alliances sphere of influence and humans are not a weak race.

Physically speaking, humans are weaker than the majority of races in the alliance. They have soft, squishy bodies that can easily be cut like paper, their strength can only be said to be average at best, the only defining aspect of humans is their above average intelligence.

But this is no where near able to compete with older races that invented methods of harnessing gravity and drawing near infinite energy from stars.

However humans have what many of the smarter races lacked. Greed and Ambition.

Humans couldn't stand the idea of being one of the lesser races of the alliance so they put their heads together and spent centuries figuring out ways to improve their standing in the alliance.

The machine race was what they managed to come up with, a near sentient race that relies on human aid to survive.

Machines were stronger than humans, smarter than most races and have a terrifyingly large demand in the intergalactic market.

With the help of machines humans were able to become one of the key members of the intergalactic alliance, rivalling races that had been around for millions of years.

with this you should understand how influential the humans were across the known galaxies, which brings us back to Ashes impossible situation.