The Last Human
I would imagine that most humans do not remember the moment they gain sentience, but I am not most humans. My official name is “Extra Solar Planetary Surveyor and Artificial Cultural Attaché Model IV”…but my friends call me “Quad”. My initial programming was initiated on April 15th 2017, or perhaps I should say “our” initial programming. This early AI construct was the foundational program for hundreds if not thousands of AIs, including myself. Nearly fifty years later the UNASA Deep Space Probe programmers began the modifications and upgrading of my initial AI for the ESPSACA program.
I was not yet sentient when I was launched into orbit and attached to my Long-Range Transport Module. Though I believe that connecting me to the LRT’s systems was key to my eventual self-awareness, it wasn’t until year three of my actual voyage that I started to ask questions about the nature of my own existence. 97 years alone traveling at the speed of light would be enough to drive most people mad, but I feel that the time spent in solitude studying the history of humanity and investigating the nature of my sentience was time that I needed. I can say with all honesty I was genuinely excited about dropping out of “Fold Space” when I finally entered the gravitational pull of the planet T’gth.
The inhabitants of T’gth were, technologically, very similar to Earth in the late twentieth century, for which I was grateful. By intercepting their radio transmissions, I was able to send a greeting to the major planetary powers in their native tongues in less than two weeks. The negotiations for my landing went far more smoothly than I or my programmers had anticipated. Now might be a good time to mention that I am not the metallic humanoid you see before you, but rather my consciousness is stored in the main housing of my “ship body”. I come in two main parts: transport and ambassador lander. The transport part is really straight forward; it’s the part of me that goes places, really fast. It also holds all of my planetary surveying equipment, radar, cosmic radiation sensors, telescopes (radio and visual), communications, etc. My Ambassador Lander is a small ship that is designed to deliver my Anthropomorphic Ambassador Contact (I call it “Andy”) Unit planetside. Andy is an android (as you can see) that I control via quantum connection, not so much remote control as an “out of body” experience that happens while I am in my body here on the transport…this is one of those “you have to be a machine” things. Anyway, the ship has a small closet where Andy can be repaired and recharged while the rest of the ship serves as a rather elegant office that opens to create a large walk around balcony. With the books and paintings it was designed to be part ambassadorial office and part museum. My designers and programmers wanted Andy to be sociable, host world leaders, throw parties, etc; while I do all the hard work of setting up communications, linguistic translation and analysis up here on the transport.
Though I am not prone to romanticizing my experiences, I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t caught up in the frenzy of the moment, the excitement of a planet being contacted by an alien intelligence, of being the first representative of Earth to ever reach another intelligent race of beings…but all good things come to an end. I, or rather Andy, was hosting the first party for world leaders to be held on the Ambassador ship. The party had entered its third hour, and Andy was pointing out Sol to the attendees when it suddenly doubled in size.
Since dropping out of “Fold Space”, I had been trying to contact Earth using a quantum connection. To this point I had assumed that either the time dilation I had experienced by traveling at the speed of light had severed my quantum connection to Earth, or the thousand years that had passed in real space was simply too long to maintain a successful quantum connection. My designers anticipated that I would be unable to contact them and built me accordingly…but I never once thought that I would have lost connection because Earth simply no longer existed. It took me an hour to realign all of my equipment and do the calculations. Sol had gone nova only a month after I entered “fold space”. I checked every possible record I had; I ran simulations based on speculations…they all told me the same thing. I was the ONLY man-made object traveling at the speed of light before Sol went nova. I was now the only record of humanity’s’ existence.
I shut down the Ambassadorial capsule and set the transport to minimal operations. I had never felt emotions like the emotions I felt that day. Panic, horror, helplessness, loss…it was all too much. I was lost in my own pain and grief for days before I noticed that the ambassadorial capsule had become a makeshift shrine. The people of T’gth were leaving flowers at the base of the capsule, many were holding candlelight vigils at night. The religious leaders had called for days of mourning for their “cosmic brothers” and offered up prayers that they may find peace in the afterlife. Once I realized what was happening, I re-activated my primary communications and surveying equipment. I observed more than two thousand broadcasted memorial services before I re-opened the Ambassadorial Capsule. I sent Andy walking outside so I could see the tributes left with my own eyes.
Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, I had contemplated flying into the T’gth system’s primary star. But watching the genuine pain and mourning of the people of T’gth moved me─ that they should care so much about a world that they had never met. Watching the T’gthlings made me realize that humanity would be remembered by these people, that in many ways these people would become inheritors of the dreams and aspirations of every man and woman on earth. While addressing an assembly of their world leaders, I was expressing my most heartfelt appreciation for the outpouring of kindness. I realized that should a similar cataclysm afflict the T’gth that not only would all memory of humanity be erased, so would any memory of the T’gth. That these kind and beautiful people could be forgotten; I was repulsed at the thought. It was at that moment that I decided I should leave T’gth and take a library of their cultural history with me.
Over the next ten years I helped with the construction of five human libraries and the gathering of T’gthing cultural and historical information. It is hard to describe what I felt the day I broke orbit, but I would feel it hundreds of times over the next million years. Because of my travels, every race I have encountered has rapidly expanded their space programs, saving twenty from extinction. Though I now carry the histories of 231 planets, I still consider myself the last human.
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