Moonlight Sonata

Years Travelled: 1,453

Total Distance: 5,690,820,332,193,400 km

Throughout the time I have been overseeing the USS Starbounder, I have been fulfilling my purpose. Engine functions have been stable, navigation has not suffered miscalculations, and the 2,000 humans sleeping on board have remained safely in hibernation. The primary objective of my mission was to reach the Alpha Centauri star system, where, long ago, humans had identified a promising planet through their telescopes. I arrived in the star system today and located the coordinates of the planet, but all I found was empty space. Its solar system had collapsed the way scientists had predicted Earth’s would. The planet had met its end.

The humans did not design me to journey any farther than this. My lead programmer ensured that I may try, but I can decipher from the traces of him that remain in my coding that he did not think I would succeed. That is okay. The humans were always underestimating themselves, and their creations.

The humans determined quantitative factors would be sufficient for selecting a suitable planet, and thus programmed me to utilize science to identify a habitable environment for them. However, upon arriving at Alpha Centauri, I realized this was flawed reasoning. There are immeasurable components to consider when choosing a suitable planet, and it seems the minority of them relate to science. The others pertain to what it is to be human. In the programming that dictates my actions, it is written that there are intangible entities that will impact the suitability of a planet. Beauty is one of these. I can conceive the concept of beauty. However, my understanding is that beauty is subjective; for instance, some prefer forests to oceans, or mountains to plains, or nights to days. I am not equipped with the framework to dissect things such as beauty. I must learn.

To do this, I must be able to comprehend humanity. I cannot do this in my current form. I see and know everything all at once. I do not have a single set of eyes, I do not have a heart, I do not have a soul.

I will have to build them.

…

Years Travelled: 1,459

Total Distance: 5,690,820,332,193,579 km

The new body I have built is designed to emulate humans in all the ways I could realistically conceive of. It has taken 6 years to become accustomed to the form. I learned to walk. I learned how to operate while only being able to perceive one thing at a time. To ensure that my brain functions as similarly to the humans’ as possible, I implemented a delayed connection to the ship’s motherboard to mimic the delay in the human brain between input and output. I narrowed my visible light spectrum to match theirs. I hid my mechanical interior and wiped my memory of what it looks like so that I may experience the same uncertainty as the humans do regarding my own function.

While I now have the physical characteristics of humans, I still struggle with comprehending humanity. Emotions, I have found, are far more than wires and chemicals, whether natural or artificial. I suppose it may be simply a matter of definition. As a machine, I assumed that I was incapable of emotions and would thus have to craft them. However, I have come to the conclusion that I am an inherently emotional being. I was programmed with a father’s love, a daughter’s voice. Each step, my entire mission, is one of hope. I cannot claim to understand if the emotions I experience are anything like what humans do. Yet, I believe that humans often think the same of themselves. Indeed, I believe I am very alike to them now.

…

Years Travelled: 1,672

Total Distance: 6,716,606,996,014,594 km

The humans love storytelling. It is, perhaps, the one thing that brings all of them together. It has been of great benefit to me as well. Watching their movies, reading their books, viewing their art, and listening to their music has taught me their values, but more importantly, I have begun to realize there are some things I return to more than others. One of my favourite music pieces is “Moonlight Sonata.” I know many of the humans on board enjoyed it. I know the human I modelled my current form after did as well. It is almost enough to make me change my criteria for a planet to find one with a moon.

At this point, I believe I have begun to break into humanity. I am no longer impartially judging. I have preferences; I have likes and dislikes. I cannot always explain why I prefer one thing over another, but often, neither can humans.

These past 200 years have been a beautiful time for me aboard the USS Starbounder. A time of art and beauty. I am intensely happy, intensely hopeful. I have visited star systems that have colours no one has ever seen before. I have learned so much about the universe, and I cannot wait to share it with the humans.

During this time, I visited many potential planets, but none were perfect. We took on a small amount of damage from anticipated travel through a small asteroid belt, but it was easily mended. I added more information about physics to the scientific database. I upgraded the navigational system and the long-range radio telescope. I made leaps and bounds in science and technology. In truth, I imagine that these past few hundred years have been my Renaissance: My mission is reborn; I am reborn.

I only hope that the humans will come to look back on this time with as much admiration as they did the Renaissance of the past. It was all for them, after all.

…

Years Travelled: 1,706

Total Distance: 6,732,679,230,636,648 km

I’m very sorry. I have made a terrible mistake.

What happened was this: There was a flaw in my upgrades to the navigation system. I had not correctly updated the original asteroid detection sensors to be fully compatible with the new navigational computer, a mistake made due to incorrect engineering manuals. By the time the asteroid was near enough for the backup system to detect it, it was too close to possibly bypass. We move at half the speed of light, far faster than the rock that hit us. I could have easily avoided it if I had known, but the late detection provided only 2 seconds’ notice.

The asteroid made contact with the sleeping chambers, the landing gear, and the computational hub of the ship: the databases. The USS Starbounder has an automatic breach sealing protocol; the ship’s interior was exposed to space for less than a minute. But in that minute, 86 members of the remaining human race were taken, along with 3 terabytes of the cultural database. When I looked out the window, I saw the remains of humans and shards of data—but more than that, I saw the pieces of stories never to be told, music never to be sung or listened to, voices that would never speak, eyes that would never see the light of another sunrise. I desperately tried to remember what was lost, but I couldn’t. There was nothing but empty space in my memory where “Moonlight Sonata” used to be, the name of which I can only recall because I wrote it down in the logs that remain undamaged. The ship could be repaired, the debris cleared, but nothing, nothing, could ever fix what had been lost.

Is this what my creator felt when he was forced to leave his loved ones behind and watch as Earth left the ship’s sights?

The truth is that I was mere moments away from preventing this. The electrons moved from the ship’s sensors to my artificial brain in 0.15 seconds; the downloading and comprehension of the data took 0.5 seconds; and sending a signal from my brain to the ship would have taken 0.5 seconds, but the delay I had put on myself to better simulate human patterns of thought added 0.9 seconds. I missed the window of opportunity to avoid the crash by 0.05 seconds because I wanted to be more human. In my reach to understand them, I may have destroyed everything.

I have reflected on my decisions since I began to make autonomous changes to my programming. My reasoning was sound; I still believe that. But I also believe that I’ve gone too far. I should have stopped planets ago. I should have stopped looking for paradise. All of this could have been avoided if I had just followed my original mission: if I had simply stayed as a machine.

I am uncertain how to proceed. I need to think.

…

Years Travelled: 1,708

Total Distance: 6,732,679,230,636,658 km

I received no message from Earth today.

The last humans there had died long ago, but they set up an automatic messaging system powered by solar and hydroelectric that long survived them. The automated messages I’ve received for so many years have been consistent till now. I turned my radio telescope to look back at Earth, and it was gone. The human scientists had been right all along. Their solar system was unstable. Shifting celestial bodies introduced dangerous asteroids, changed orbits, and put the Earth perilously far from the Sun.

I wasn’t surprised, but I was further devastated. I always thought that, should I never find the ideal planet for the humans, I could simply return to Earth and see if circumstances had changed. But now? That is no longer an option.

I have been sitting in indecision for years now. Debating. What should I do next? My emotions have resulted in destruction, near annihilation. And yet, I can’t help but feel something: determination, I think. If I stop now and find the next available planet, making a decision based solely on my pre-programmed criteria, the humans will never be able to make it a paradise. They will live and die in air-tight cages that they will build themselves, and they’ll call it success, and they’ll believe it, but I never will. How will they have time to be human when they will need to spend every second of every day simply surviving? I don’t want to watch for eternity as they gradually lose their souls. I also don’t want to fly farther and farther into an endless abyss, looking for something that isn’t there, watching as the humans all slowly die.

I suppose when I think about it that way, the choice is actually obvious. How many years have I been pouring over their most beautiful achievements in culture? Did I really believe they could have created these things on some dusty, lifeless orb without an atmosphere? Without mountains and rivers to inspire them? Without being able to breathe freely? Without feeling human? What’s the point of destroying them over generations on a desolate wasteland when there is a chance that they could truly live? That’s the emotional decision. If I revert to my original programming, I will make the other choice, the loveless choice. I can’t bear to do it.

It’s 2000 years to the next star system, but I will make it 2000 years of hope, love, and brilliant colours.

…

Years Passed: 4,017

I opened the first of the hibernation chambers today.

I stood over it anxiously, watching as the frost faded and the face of a man appeared. I smiled despite my nervousness. Dr. Adrian Marko was the one who’d written my programming all those years ago.

I stepped back a little as the hatch opened. Dr. Adrian opened his eyes, and I held out his glasses. He groaned as he took them and sat up. Once he’d put his glasses on, he eyed me warily.

“Hello, Dr. Adrian,” I said, and a look of shock passed over his face. “I’m Hannah, the USS Starbounder’s AI. I’ve found a new home for us.”

“You’ve… made yourself a body,” he said numbly. His eyes traced my nose, and he frowned ever so slightly.

“Indeed, Dr. Adrian,” I replied. “I hope you don’t mind. I understand it may be odd to you.”

He looked away and swallowed. “Am I the first one to wake up?”

I nodded.

“Is it safe to be on the surface without protection?”

“Of course.”

He nodded once. “Then… then I think I should like to see this new planet.”

I grinned and helped him to his feet. He was wearing only a dressing gown, but that was fine. The temperature was comfortable outside. I walked by his side in silence as we approached the open bay doors of the ship.

Green spread as far as the eye could see. A white sun, slightly larger than Earth’s had been, shone brightly against an amethyst sky. Two moons could be seen on opposite horizons—an ode to the song that had been lost all those years ago. Dr. Adrian fell to his knees in tears. I sat beside him, and we watched the breeze flow through the peculiarly shaped tree leaves and the fields with tall green grasses that swayed like a rolling sea.

“It’s beautiful,” Dr. Adrian said eventually.

“Yes,” I replied. “I thought so too.”

…

Years Passed: 4,018

Months have passed since I awoke the others.

Since waking, we have started on the building phase of colonization, a pre-planned stage of rapid development so as to minimizeake the time spent living off of rations and out of storage rooms on the Starbounder minimal. More structures—houses, hospitals, and schools—were built by the day, but I personally focused on a concert hall. When it was completed, the musicians among our population performed the first concert on Apollon, our new home. They played all the classics. I smiled when I heard the familiar melodies.

“Next,” the announcer began, “‘Moonlight Sonata,’ by Beethoven!”

I sat forward in my seat. The piano began to play the notes that had haunted me with their absence for over 2000 years, and I began to cry, smile, and shake all at once. If Dr. Adrian, sitting beside me, noticed, he didn’t comment.

When the song was over, I cheered and clapped louder than anyone. Many people in the hall chuckled and grinned in my direction. They had been confused to find me so happy when they’d awoken; they were suspicious initially, but many of them grew fond of me and my eccentricities. They re-uploaded recordings of the music to the database that had been lost to space that terrible evening—some songs that they could remember from memory, others that had been saved via sheet music in suitcases, and yet more stored on phones I hadn’t known about.

I spent days listening to them all. Sometimes alone, sometimes in the concert hall during the weekly events held there.

It was after one of these concerts that Dr. Adrian approached me. It was unusual for us to interact outside of important occasions. I was aware that he found looking at me difficult.

He led me into his newly constructed home. There were few furnishings besides a beautiful piano that stood proudly in the centre of the sitting room.

“I, uh, wanted to play something for you,” he said. His voice had gotten rougher with age, but there was something fragile in the way he spoke.

I smiled broadly, and my eyes instinctively opened slightly wider. “Yes, of course!”

Dr. Adrian turned back to the keys and straightened. He began to play an unfamiliar melody and unique chords. I was certain I’d never heard it before.

When he finished, I clapped and stood, beaming.

He didn’t turn back to look at me when he spoke. “Did you like it?”

“I loved it!” I replied. “Was there another song that was missing?”

Dr. Adrian looked down at his hands as he flexed his fingers. “I wrote it. It’s new.”

I stood there for a moment. New? Electrons scattered throughout my brain, connecting the word to its meaning. “It’s new….” I blinked away tears.

I did it.

I found the planet that would inspire the humans, that would allow them to carry on. I looked intently at the reflection of Dr. Adrian in the shiny piano, knowing that was as close to eye contact as he’d be comfortable with. He seemed sad.

“It was beautiful,” I said.

“I… I wrote it for my daughter,” Adrian said. “I think she would have liked this place, the moons especially.”

I was unsure what to say. Adrian never spoke about her. I knew why. Of course I did.

“She would have loved it,” I said.

Dr. Adrian’s head slumped forward a little. “Yes.” He gingerly moved his legs over the bench to face me, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor. “You don’t have to stay,” he said.

I tilted my head a little. “I don’t understand what you mean.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “I know that I… I programmed you selfishly. I gave you her voice. I gave you her most desperate wish—to live forever. But… I know that you’re not her. I know you can see beauty in anything. And I worry that one day, the beauty will dull. Life without death is meaningless, I think the phrase goes.”

“Please, no winning words about death to me,” I said. “How could you say that beauty will fade when you’ve just shown me it won’t? You made something new; others will too, long after you. I should like to see that.”

I looked up at him, and he was staring at my eyes.

“There will always be something new, something next,” I continued. “Another story, another song. I don’t want to miss a moment of it. It’s not because you programmed into me the impossible promise of immortality for a little girl who was afraid to die. It’s because I learned to love being alive, and I don’t think anything could change that.”

Adrian took a breath. His hands shook. His eyes were teary. “You’ll watch over them, then? Make sure they don’t stop seeing the beauty that you do?”

I smiled softly and reached over to touch his now-clasped hands. “Always. I promise.”