Planet Ignis | Chapter 15

... a tribute to friendship and courage.

Brodnir, the brave and beloved king, holds an enduring place in the hearts of the Ignian people. His selfless deeds and unwavering courage etched an indelible mark upon their history.

In honor of our cherished friendship, I was entrusted with the privilege of designing his Longevity Chess card. This card embodies the spirit of his bravery, granting players the power to confine an opponent’s king at the cost of Longevity Stones.

Oh, how I wish this card had existed when Brodnir and Trother played together. That would have…

In “The History of Longevity Chess” by Eli, the Flarewalker

“I want to hear the council’s thoughts on this message now,” Brodnir began, his voice steady but grave. “Esteemed council members, you’ve all had time to consider the message. I want your thoughts now. Could this be a trap laid by the Raptor to lure us into the open?”

Hingwid, Captain of the Golden Guard, was the first to respond. “That seems unlikely, my king. As Faren’s failure in decoding it shows, this message was meticulously crafted, designed specifically to block an AI from breaking through.”

“Couldn’t the Raptor have forged this message?” one of the other lits asked, sounding skeptical.

“I doubt it,” Hingwid continued. “It seems the good doctor has gone through the trouble of adding a few more layers of humanity to the message. Firstly, he sent a voice message, and those would be considerably more difficult to forge for the Raptor than a written one. Even if we consider he has hacked and corrupted the AIs of the other tribes, this much processing power should be outside its reach for now.”

“I agree,” another council member added, leaning forward thoughtfully. “Too many subtle details would have been beyond the Raptor’s capacity to fake. For instance, Hitori’s off-world accent and the fact that it is even Hitori sending the message. It’s too far-fetched for an AI to have thought of this.”

The council members nodded, their faces growing more focused. Most had reached the same conclusion independently. Brodnir let the responses settle, then continued.

“I believe it’s safe to say the message is genuine, that the Raptor could not have forged it. But let us examine the content more closely. My first question to the council is this: Why would Dr. Hitori contact us only now, after so many decades of silence? What do we think has changed?”

“Could it be that he took this long to work on this so-called solution he found for the downside of the mutation?” asked Faranee, the chief bronze smith, a line of concern etched into her brow.

“According to the records, he told the tribes never to use the satellites. We started actively using this in the times preceding the Great War,” another Lit added. “But it has been centuries. That couldn’t have been the trigger, could it?”

“I think the most important question is: how on Ignis is the man still alive?” another voice interjected. “His name is a story we tell in the Collegiums. He should be nothing more than legend by now! And if he’s still here… what else did we miss?”

Different theories flew around the Throne Room, each council member grappling with the implications. Brodnir listened in silence and spared a glance at Trother, who had yet to share his thoughts. Brodnir finally prompted him.

“Trother, the Wise. You have been silent long enough—what do you see in this message that we might have missed?”

Everyone quieted down, turning their full attention to the oldest member of the council.

“My king, council members, I agree with your assessment. This message seems genuine, and Doctor Hitori, the Savior himself, sent it.

Although we’ve considered the message sufficiently, we must look at two other things. First, what is not in the message. Second, the message within the message.”

Brodnir observed how everyone in the council stared at Trother, drinking in his words.

“First, let’s see what is not in the message. A voice message would indeed be harder to forge than a written one. But wouldn’t a video message be even harder to counterfeit? Why would the Doctor send audio if he could have sent a video? If his goal was to assure us of the message’s authenticity, that would have been even better. We must assume he would have the equipment to do so. Only then could he find a way to extend human life beyond anything ever heard of and thwart the Raptor’s cyber-attacks.”

Brodnir nodded. He had thought the same thing.

“We must assume that sending us audio wasn’t a decision made lightly or randomly. This brilliant man shows excellent insight into how he encrypted the message. The Doctor chose primary human relationships and emotions that would have been, undoubtedly, something that Schneider discarded when he uploaded his consciousness into the military drone. Therefore, without empathy or social intelligence, the Raptor won’t be able to answer them correctly.

“Furthermore, look closely at what is not in the questions. There is no reference to Reds, Yellows, Lits, Blues, Bursting, or Longevity, which shows us that Doctor Hitori doesn’t know much about us. He only knows four things. One is that we have access to advanced technology. Two, we want to fight off the Raptor and, if possible, extend our lifespan. Third, we are smart because we survived this long. And finally, we have a very closely-knit society with strong family bonds.”

“How do you know he knows these things?” asked Faranee.

“As for the first point, he knows we have technology because he sent us a message through the satellites and referred to bringing him the mutagen. He knows probes and equipment were sent down to the planet during the Settling. He knows it would have been the only way for a settlement of stranded humans to survive this long.

“As for being survivors, I think no explanation is required. We have survived against all odds.

“Thirdly, he also knows we are smart because of the different layers of meaning within the message. Better said, he hopes we are smart. But if we weren’t bright, he would be doomed, so he just hoped for the best.

“As for an estimate of how united and closely knit we are, I have no idea. Doctor Hitori knows we understand the fundamentals of relationships between parents and children, friends and couples because he used that knowledge to create the encryption key. He also knows we have short lives because he mentions it in the message.

“Don’t forget this is the man who developed the mutation! He participated in the preliminary design of the settlements. It is possible he concluded that a high birth rate and a family-oriented society were intrinsic for a settlement like this to be possible.”

Brodnir grunted in agreement. He had come to the same conclusions. One wasn’t a king without a keen mind.

“Regarding why the Doctor is only contacting us now… Faren, did the Doctor use Ignian coding to transmit this message to us?”

“Negative. Doctor Hitori used regular binary transmission,” answered Faren.

“That would explain why only now he is contacting us. We have always used Ignian in our satellite transmissions as a safety measure. Using this language hid us from Hitori. He doesn’t know it. We invented it. Perhaps he only now noticed the strange strings of data. If the Raptor has increased its computing power and is using it to hack the satellite grid, the Doctor probably concluded that the only explanation for such an upgrade was if he had found and corrupted the other probes. He must have pieced all of this together and discovered there were still survivors.”

“Trother, the Wise, if I may ask, what did you mean by the message within the message?” asked Kawaki.

Trother and Eli exchanged looks. Trother then continued.

“Look at the message closely. Is there anything in it that seems out of place?” His eyes searched the Council. Suddenly, Brodnir felt that everyone in the Council looked like a child attending one of Trother’s lectures.

Kakawi, the Yellow Chemist, spoke. “It seems contradictory that he says so many times how little time he has and then seems to ramble on some parts of the message.”

“Precisely!” said Trother, as he would to a pupil in one of his classes. “Notice how he refers multiple times to the beginning, the start, the genesis. These are not essential to the message and wouldn’t be useful if he was short of time. Why waste precious seconds mentioning these things multiple times? Faren, please get the first letter in the words of each question, assign them a binary number according to their place in the alphabet, and use that as an encryption key.”

Chapter 16