"So the invaders left after inflicting us with the virus, surely waiting to come back after the entire race had been wiped out. We were left looking for a way to somehow survive, somehow make sure that we continued to last for millennia onwards.
"We tried and tried, there was absolutely no way for us to reproduce, and our planet's resources had diminished.
"But then we came up with a solution. If we can't pass our genes on to the next generation, why not aim to, well, live forever ourselves?"
Aphrodite gasped, "But, but that's not possible, mankind tried for millennia to find out a way to defeat the curse of aging, and you guys just managed to find out a way just like that?!" she exclaimed,
Mother slowly shook her head, "When backed into a corner we'll do anything we can to survive, surpass any limits possible to keep on living. We didn't only find one way to prolong our lifetimes, we found three.
"The first, and most common method was the consciousness transfer method, this was pioneered in Japan and was applied to the Servs we had in production at the time. It was simple: all memories, thoughts, and ideas of the living human were directly transferred to the CPU of the Serv, essentially allowing the human to live forever as the machine. Whenever the machine would deteriorate or break, the data on the CPU would be transferred via a network, to another body.
"A vast majority of the Serv on Mars used to be humans. At least, their thoughts and memories belonged to that of a human. They have humanoid figures and we sculpted their society to be as human-like as possible. I'm not going to bother going into the ethics of it. But essentially, while the Servs may exist in a digital and mechanical form, all their functions are exactly the same as the original human. So it's the same person, yes?
"You Servs. You're all humans, in a certain form." Mother paused briefly. A look of shock and disbelief among all three of the Servs. They all had the brain patterns of ghosts from thousands of years ago. Someone with a family, with loved ones, with friends and a life of his or her own, was now living inside of another body, thousands of years in the future. The original was a human, a fully fledged human with a fully fledged life, now his zombied soul was hanging like a corpse inside this Serv shell. His soul was trapped there, trapped there for thousands of years.
Ava stepped forward,
"But wha-" he started
"I'm not done yet." said Mother, "if you're wondering why you don't remember anything from your past life. It's because of simple data deterioration. Eight thousand years is a long time. Older data fragments, newer data takes over. We never really had to foresight to wonder what'd happen to the Serv versions of ourselves thousands of years in the future. The way it is, well, who's to say if you could be called human or not now. You still have those brain patterns, your personality veers towards that of your original, and shadows of your old memories are there even if you don't realise it. Are you an adequate replacement for the human race? Would the humans who died hoping you'd carry on their legacy be happy with what things are like now? Maybe Servs could even be called the evolution of the human race. Maybe we were destined to move on to digital form at some point or another. Who knows?
"Anyway, not soon after this, something else was created. It was called the Infinity Engine. It was a device that built a core shell around the brain, modified the entire body's nerve signals, and changed the composition of our cells on a fundamental level to make it so that they renewed on a normalised level. No sort of deterioration. Rapid healing. It protected the brain from any interference and..." Mother chuckled, "also got rid of our requirement of food as we knew it. The mechanism in the Infinity Engine was solar powered. Basically, as long as the sun shone, a person was sure to stay alive."
Aphrodite, who was initially kneeling next to mother with a wistful face, frowned and stood up,
"How stupid do you think we are? That's impossible!" she shouted, "Even if something like that were to exist, you really expect us to believe that mankind would be able to develop it within one generation of research and development?"
"You don't know much about war I guess Aphrodite," said Mother,
"That's right," the Major added, her arms crossed and a furrowed brow, "both sides continuously steal technology from each other. That's just the way it works. A race to reach the top in terms of weapons technology. Although in this case-"
"In this case, it was survival technology," said Mother, "an advanced version of what the invaders used to facilitate long-distance travel. The war lasted thousands of years, and from the perspective of the people battling, they were swarming in again and again. But from the perspectives of the people actually,on the other sides, there were intervals of hundreds of years between every skirmish."
"So that's one of the reasons there were huge gaps between their invasions? Because they needed to travel at lightspeed to reach us?" asked Aphrodite,
"Exactly. Which meant they needed to develop a way for the ones outposted on this side of the battle to live for extended periods of time. So they could wait until the next skirmish and deliver reconnaissance. Thankfully we managed to take over every alien outpost in our solar system during the gap in between battles and stole their technology.
"That's how we developed the Infinity Engine.
"I was twelve when it was first announced, it's incredible that it took almost forty years after that for the damn thing to be close to useable.
"Either way, the full treatment only worked on a tiny percentage of the population. It was an extremely costly and meticulous process that involved changing the entire composition of the human body.
"Sure, the body was organic, but it'd reach a point where... it'd hard to argue that a human with an Infinity Engine body was different from that with a Serv body. Flesh, metal, what difference did it make if it wasn't the original body?
"So just as a recap, method one was the transfer the human mind as digital data to a Serv CPU, method two was to completely transform the human body into an organic solar being that could live forever, and the third method?
"Actually that involved a mix of method one and two.
"A more rudimentary version of the Infinity Engine was used to encase the human brain. No interference with the actual body itself. We'd manage to use that to create "cores" that have everlasting human brains in them, and then transfer them to bodies of cheaper, mass-produced robots.
"This was the most common and most successful way of doing things.
"I'm sure I don't need to tell you what types of robots those were."
"Wait," Aphrodite muttered, "you're telling me cores, those things I find inside Evos. They house human brains?"
"It makes sense, doesn't it? When they're off the network they immediately start acting human-like. Developing family units, societies, their own little systems, and communities." another sip of tea, "they're not robots. At least. Not on the inside."
"Wow, we really did do our best to try and get over that disease." Aphrodite was still finding it hard to believe. That every form of intelligence she'd seen so far was, in fact, some sort of iteration of a human being.
"Yes. Well, that's not even mentioning the Servs with actual cores in them. Human brains in a Serv body." said Mother,
"I'm guessing those would be the other Block-1s," said The Major, her deadpan voice his the constant deep resentment she had for the other Block-1s.
"Indeed. Only a small few were allowed to have a humanoid body and keep their original brain. In the end, their existence became necessary though. You know, to keep society running the way it is."
"There's also the humans on the sanctuary planet. And me." said Aphrodite, "it looks like the history of this entire galaxy for the past thousand years or so has just been mankind trying to crawl itself back into relevance."
Mother didn't seem to like this comment, her face was far less jovial,
"We've been waiting here in these bastardised forms for thousands of years. Servs, Evos, me. We might act human, but we're not suitable replacements. The beasts that roam the ruins of Earth, they're the true face of mankind. We're no different from them." she said, a deep and menacing tone to her voice,
"Those beasts... I'm gonna take a wild guess and assume that the humans that had the Infinity Engine installed in them-" started Ava,
"Yes. They turned into that. We thought the Infinity Engine worked. It didn't. Over time more and more humans started to mutate. They started to turn into beasts. We would quarantine them but it made no difference. It wasn't a virus, it was just the way our bodies had ended up being turned. The next stage of our evolution after the procedure we used to violate our bodies. The last person to mutate that I know of was a German scientist I used to spend my time with." Mother sighed, "wow, that takes me back. We spent three hundred years together, alone. He was one of the few I was gracious enough to shoot in the head. There are thousands out there who need a release from this curse of living an everlasting life as a monster. But I'm not powerful enough to do what needs to be done. Heh, I have another mission."
"You really think mankind in the state it's in right now is disgusting, don't you?" asked Aphrodite,
"Well, I've been trying my best to babysit you all in the meantime. The networked model we created to initiate a perpetual war between the Servs and Evos is very sensitive. I need to keep a constant watchful eye on it. You should thank me for that."
"What the hell are you talking about!? Pulling our strings, using the network to force us to fight each other, what makes you think that's a good idea!?" the Major yelled,
"Population density, communal alliance, social structure and hierarchy, technological and ideological development. Do you know how hard all that is to control?" said Mother, "I've been keeping it all in a perfect balance. Don't you think I couldn't ignite the Black Hole Bomb in the middle of Mars whenever I wanted? Or get all the Evo warships to shoot Mars all in one go?" she tutted, "This fake war has been a joke, nothing compared to the terror man has seen. It's all a simple simulation to keep you under control. The Evos have more than enough weapons to slaughter you all."
That shut the Major up.
She didn't know what to say.
"Anyway." said Mother, "there's still one more chapter to this story. And after that, I have something to discuss with you my children."