The conversation with Frydai was a few weeks ago now. We've been busy. He's had his deeper scans done, his mates have had communications implants put in, and undergone deep scans as well. Not so that they could get further implants, but they agreed to it, upon Frydai's request, to help build a baseline for them as a species.
The results of those scans are exactly what I expected, with a few surprises. They all show the signs of deep and careful genetic engineering. They have connection points in their nervous systems that I would use, and did within my own, to attach weapons, and to create contact points where weapons, space-suits, armor, etc... can make contact with them and therefore be controlled without needing to actually jack into something. While the connection isn't ideal for situations where a reliable connection is needed, something like a weapon for triggering it mentally would be useful, or being able to give commands to a space suits systems.
The more I learn, the more I think our two peoples, when we both left our worlds, very similar to eachother. This also drives a point home. There is, I don't think, anyone in this system, on this world or any other world in the system, with the advanced tech that I have, and that the Lou'orth did, and may still somewhere out there. If they did, they would have come looking. Between the signals from my drones, my own signature when I'm transmitting, the power output from the module, etc... I'd have been able to pick me up from a very great distance.
As an elder, I was able to access the crypt. It is a second cave system that they maintain, but it is where they interred their dead at the beginning, and is where the elder council meetings are held. Exploring the deeper crypt, I found the earliest survivors bodies, their skeletons, and if the clear genetic markers that show up in Frydai, Hearl, and Clar's bodies weren't enough, these sealed the deal.
I was able to date them and now have a much stronger date for how long they have been here, but that isn't the real revelation. No. It is the fact that they had implants. Brain implants, communications implants, several had implanted weapons and tools. I went back with a detailed hand scanner and have the computer reconstructing them. They were more advanced in some ways than my early ones, and less in others. Really, we were as peoples, on an equal footing.
What's more... There are brain implants that appear to be much like mine, where a backup of sorts is done. I back that up to a redundant system every few weeks. If I were to ever be killed. I could regrow myself and that implant would allow the me, up to that point, to be brought back. I don't know if it would really be me or not. I have read lots of philosophy on that when I was deciding to do it or not. It was something I picked up from my friends back at the Speaker. There is no agreement on it, and it hinges on the permanence of something like a soul. Philosophy like that goes over my head.
It is something I have discussed with Frydai, and shown him where it is. I've asked him that, if something were to happen to me, that he retrieve the unit and bring it back here to the module. Showing him where to connect it to the auto-doc to initiate a reconstruction of my body. He was a bit freaked out by the idea, not that I blame him. He said he would do it. I can ask no more than that hope.
That said, I will be bringing this to the attention of the elder council. It is possible that, if the backups are still intact, and they should be, given my scans, that these people could be awakened, after a fashion. Though we don't know what their desires were. Having such an implants is suggestive, as not all of them from the same time frame had one. It is clear that most of those original survivors did.
Problem is, I'd have to disturb the bodies significantly to retrieve them. However, the AI core systems, with the fixes to address the issues that drove the original AI's insane, would make for perfect temporary homes for them to be brought back to some form of consciousness and asked questions.
I'm kinda shocked I'm even considering this, but they could have data on where their ship is, or was. At the same time, I'd have to do work to isolate that system from the rest of everything. No telling how they might react. We might also need to be ready to respond to a request to have their backup destroyed. Lots to talk over with the other elders. Including the possibility that they might want to have their bodies regrown, which I can do, with a bit of work on the A-Doc. How do we move then? Do I even admit to having that ability?
I'm just trying to survive here and maybe someday, get back off this world. These deep ethical questions, philosophy, the moral dilemmas, it's all driving me nuts. I was alone out there for so long. I can manage being alone, but then I added my friends Kotth and Lurr from the Ull Malk′et, and these ethical problems cropped up. I was just an observer before then. Then I added Edix, Jen, Arl, and Liss. They presented a whole different set of questions, given that their existence was based very literally and directly off of choices I made on an order form. It was a detailed order form, but still, it was an order form. I ordered them, and paid for them. Now this with the Lou'orth. I am so not up to this.
Frydai did say he wanted to add his logs to the mix, but wanted to cull some of the early stuff, reorder his thoughts and such. I let him know to just tag whichever entries he wants to include, be that entries going forward, or some past ones as well. He said he would. He's so busy with his mates and their planning though, I don't know when he will do that.