Elements of worry

Ever since the Replicants popped a tactical nuke a couple kilometers up and spread radioactive dust over the area, forcing the entire long process of restarting to the terraformers to clean it up, leading to the its own series of woes, I'd worried that something like that could happen again. Krenshar, the most highly developed of the Replicant AI's and ultimately their leader, had been manipulated by the Alliance through their local mainframe to try and drive the Humans off of Hale's and there was nothing stopping it from happening again.

That first effort hadn't succeeded. Even with the nuke, the colonists dug in their heels and refused to leave. The fact that they'd used a nuke for the contamination factor and not planted it in the middle of the colony was one of the major factors in coming to an agreement with them. I'd always thought the reason Krenshar placed the nuke as he had, so the contamination would encourage us to leave without being bad enough to kill anyone, was because even with the 'frame pushing his thinking out of whack his personality was ultimately good. The Ghost in the Machine didn't want to hurt us.

Or did he?

With a mother bot loose somewhere on Hale's and Blue Sun's "Blue Man" AI still in existence, I couldn't help but worry that something was going to push Krenshar and his brethren over the edge again. For the Machines, Krenshar and his brethren were ready made alies. Literally. To all appearances, he was fully sentient. Which meant it was entirely likely he had his own hopes and aspirations. But did his agenda align with the colonists he shared the moon with? Was he really willing to play nice with the Organics and share the world?

That was the kind of thought that kept me awake at night. Wondering whether we'd made a terrible mistake by showing compassion to the growing intelligence in a mechanical shell. Did Kren feel any compassion towards us? Could he? Or was his behavior all part of an elaborate program, or, worse, part of a more insidious plan to execute his own agenda that included removing the organics. I wanted to believe that he was ultimately good inside. That he wanted to live in peace as much as we did. I know I could be wrong. I just didn't want to be.

I'd gotten enough recent intel to worry that maybe I was wrong. That maybe Krenshar had his own agenda and it would be played out soon. Did we really want to deal with another replicant revolt? How would we handle it this time? I can't imagine that the colonists would be willing to forgive and forget like they did last time. If Kren and the Order turned against the colony, or, worse, sided with Mother Bot, there was no way things would ever go back to the way they were. The best that would happen was the colonists evacuate and Hale's Moon is quarantined. The worst? We end the machines permenantly.

I don't want a war with you, my friend. Please don't force it on us.