Episode 4: Oswin's Cocoon

"May I have your attention, please! The Skynet has been restarted, and the highest emergency response level has been imposed. The city will be under curfew very soon. Riot police and Spartan mercenary will take over the discipline. Please remain at your residence and do not come out. I repeat…."

"Due to malfunction of some satellites, computing power and bandwidth are limited and Skynet services in some regions are limited to basic functions…"

"This incident is a temporary emergency that would not cause long-term inconvenience to citizens. We urge citizens to avoid panic buying. Resource supply is currently stable and sufficient…"

"Players, please log in to your accounts as soon as possible to verify any abnormal activities of assets. If exists, please contact the customer service center at Thoule….and the security department…"

"Attention, please! The global autonomous driving navigator is under system crash. The recovery time remains unknown. All vehicles will be temporarily programmed into manual mode before system recovery. If you cannot manually drive your vehicle, please remain in your position and keep your emergency flashers on…."

"Security system failure. Several factories and storages have been robbed and set on fire by gangsters. Casualty reports…."

"System breakdown of Skynet has caused numerous incidents with casualties. All hospitals are running at full capacity and some slums have become warzones…."

"Reservoirs are accidentally discharged. Some downtowns in Vitemusk and metro have been flooded…"

"According to the Arkhangai Anda brothers, a cargo ship with firearms and tanks is still disconnected to Skynet, which might have encountered accidents or been robbed."

"The Kantele Group has called an indefinite delay on Hanssen's world tour concert while the artist himself has not yet responded to the announcement."

"Due to functionality limitation of the network, broadcast traffics could not be held. Therefore, the new Triathlon Offline World Cup Quarter Final Contest is delayed to early next month."

"The Robot Riots stormed back, attacking amateur astronomers who were observing Halley's Comet's revisit. According to reliable sources, the regional riots are supported by some mankind…."

"Master Andropov from Karma announced his plan to reform the robot rioters using psionic."

"Chief Scientist Jiang Yu at Thoule Aerospace claimed this Skynet malfunction does not affect the department's Mars Development Project and the next rocket launch will remain on schedule."

"For safety reasons, Thoule Aerospace will conduct the full set of troubleshooting procedures on transportation and communication systems between the moon and the Earth. The procedures are estimated to take a few days, during which…"

"The Faun Group reported experimental pigs to escape at the company's Europe Pasture No.3. The pigs are described as extremely ferocious and agile. Residents nearby please pay attention."

…..

After going through the news through his Brain-Computer Interface (BCI), Oswin smirked. Not only is the Skynet, developed on human intelligence and advanced technology, possessing humans, but it is also fragile to an extent where it would completely collapse just because of a visit of a comet. How stupid is this meaningless invention?

People seem to get used to the existence of Skynet and have developed an illusion that it is a necessity of life. The so-called security of social stability, daily lives, and business activities is indeed a full-out stalker and a quiet thief. It is an integrated entity of controlling, monitoring, safeguarding, communication, transportation, credit, AI network, and business systems. It presents itself as the satellite matrix of the low earth orbit, as all the ubiquitous surveillance cameras, sensors, and scanners. It constantly watches every single person, every single robot, every single vehicle, every single chip, every single trip, and every single transaction. Meanwhile, it also collects mega data for decision-making support from politics, and business, to military and police activities.

However, the Skynet is powered by a large number of satellites. The revisit of the Halley's Comet has imposed significant disturbance on the system, which was unexpected. After all, the last time when the comet visited, the low earth orbit was much more underdeveloped. If only some of the satellites are interrupted, other satellites could supplement their extra computing power and bandwidth. A disturbance of such scale is a first. Some satellites are completely scrapped, which might bring unexpected consequences. The aftermath would be a huge work, not to mention all the companies that are trying to pass the buck. Therefore, Skynet would take a long time to recover to its initial monitoring capacity.

Skynet is not built by one single company. It is complex and sophisticated. Even though occasionally, the Uranus would manipulate their own Skynet system for attacks, on the business level, it is all interdependent.

This kind of conflict is the true picture of the relationship between Oswin and other Uranus. For instance, Oswin and Dave from the Faun Group: Thoule highly depends on the Faun Group for its biological technologies while the Faun Group does not have the development capacity for smart equipment and aerospace equipment. All of their space biological experiments are done under the aid of Thoule. Dave looks humble, passionate, and hard-working just like a red-necked farmer. He wears his cowboy hat and his overalls every day, recording any tree that grows a 0.1mm perimeter larger fruit than the other, or joyfully feeding a calf in his arms at his so-called organic farm, ignoring all the mud and manure on his cuffs. Sometimes, Dave would also appear in the laboratory with his lab coat, pretending to shake the test tubes, which looks funny on him. He seems to be the last good guy in this cyber era, he had once saved the global agricultural industry that was almost destroyed by climate change, and he was the media's favorite. But Oswin knows what a bastard he is.

Dave's dark secrets are hidden somewhere deep between the mountains he built, somewhere within the highly-secured test base. Oswin does not and does not bother to know what exactly is in it. But he reckons that if he does not go ahead of Dave in colonizing Mars and conquering the universe. Every living thing on earth, including all organic beings, would eventually become Dave's feed and fertilizer.

Of course, his source of feed and fertilizer also includes Oswin's body. His smart brain would provide enough calories. To be honest, Dave has absolutely no interest in those high-tech things Oswin is working on. He thinks the biggest problem is from mankind itself. "All the powered armors and BCI are like ice skates on pigs," these were Dave's exact words. Mankind has a fragile body with too many bugs: poor adaptability, low energy conversion efficiency, and the tendency to have all kinds of diseases and mental issues. In such an advanced technology era, any pandemic could easily kill a handful. Just like any livestock, they should be eliminated. If humans are to conquer the universe, it would be impossible with their basics. They die once they get out of the earth. He wants to replace them all with the new creature he is working on now.

You see, this is totally the opposite of Oswin's plan with clones. On the electronic contracts the Uranus signed years ago, the business scope of the parties is clearly stated and every market in the world is carved up. Therefore, Oswin could not independently develop clones, and could only go to Dave. If overstepped, Oswin would face penalties and endless lawsuits.

When Oswin recalls Dave's first visit to his house, he showed a sense of disdain as soon as he saw all the ancient Greek relics. Oswin could read Dave's mind saying "what the fuck are these?" without even hacking into his BCI.

Oswin also recalls Dave, the good old mad farmer from Plants vs. Zombies. Is it a coincidence?

Just like zombies in the game, both Oswin and Dave want to eliminate all humans.

"Mr. O, the security department has revealed the identity of Hanssen's handler, it is a team led by Eiriksson from Viking-Davidson…."

"Noted. Just leave them. They can't shake the sky anyways, can they? We have a lot more important affairs going on. Can we have an order of priority? Get me the operation and repair department, how is the payment system going? Tell them to solve the transaction backlog first and put the new transactions aside…"

"Eiriksson, he once had a great future ahead. But he chose the worst way among the easy ones. "

The new triathlon consists of Gobi Racing, Town Breakout, and Armor Battle. It embraces battles, contests, and cooperation. The triathlon mechanism is complete with virtual reality components as a plus, forming an exciting and fierce scene. It also allows betting on participants. It was made by Thoule and is the favorite product Oswin has ever introduced. Ever since its introduction, it quickly replaced other sports like soccer, basketball, racing, and esports, and has become the most successful competitive game in the world. A lot of retired esports players, athletes, and veterans start to train for the new triathlon. The Triathlon World Cup is the most popular match of all.

This is the product draft of the new triathlon composed directly by Oswin:

Gobi Racing is a competitive module. The race ranges to hundreds of kilometers. It is similar to the former Dakar Rally. There is no limit to the race car's appearance and power engine, however, all race cars have to meet the minimum performance requirement of the Competition Committee. Generally, participants could purchase military or civil vehicles from Thoule or the Arkhangai Anda brothers as a basis for modification. During the race, participants have to independently drive their vehicles and might have to go through vile areas at high speed. Collision, chasing, rolling, use of small arms, and other violent activities are accepted in the match. This module does not rank participants. All participants who could arrive at the finish line would enter the next module, while those who fail would be eliminated.

Town Breakout is a collaborative module. Participants have to wear their high-powered armors and collaborate to break out from the city center controlled by armed AI robots within a limited time and cross over the arena boundaries. During the match, navigation and targeting functions on armors will be disabled. Participants have to independently make strategic decisions, find routes and determine enemy positions. The defensibility, mobility, and firepower of the robots are of a similar level to the official competition armors. They will automatically analyze the activities of participants and make further attacking decisions. Attacks among participants themselves are prohibited in this module. Participants can refill their bullets and other materials in the town. The participants would be scored based on the length of their routes, the number of robots defeated, assists, saves, and material consumption. The score will be regarded as a basis for team division in the next module.

Armor Battle is a competitive module. Participants will be grouped according to their scores from the previous module. 1st place player would be grouped with the last-place player and so on. The armors used in this module are melee models and the battle takes place in a battle ring. The module is designed to test participants' mentality and control over the armors. If the participant is defeated to the ground by over 3 times or experiences a malfunction of armor, he will be eliminated and the winner will enter the next round. The procedure continues till the top 3 players are determined. Attacks with blunts are accepted, however, attacks on the opponent's head, pushing the opponent out of the ring into the audience, or any other behaviors that would potentially harm the audience are strictly prohibited.

The personal safety of the participants is not considered. Participants have to sign a waiver before the games. For further queries on the waiver's contents, please contact the Legal Department.

In "Underground venues" which are not verified by the Competition Committee, the new triathlon will be held through BCI, in the metaverse form, due to the limitation of venue and resources.

After retiring from the Spartans, Eiriksson completely devotes to Triathlon World Cup training. He has won 5 consecutive championships. The record is still not broken by anyone else. After his first champion, Oswin started to personally sponsor Eiriksson, offering directing and training from professional teams, building him training bases, and directly working as his manager. Eiriksson was enchanting until he was so full of himself that he called Oswin brother. He had lost himself, lingering from media to nightclubs. He had the illusion that he was one of the Uranus. What he did not know is that the troubles he stirred up were all suppressed by the Legal and PR Departments at Thoule.

Despite his life of luxury and debauchery, he was a principled person. Despite his recklessness, he was bold enough to admit and take whatever consequence there is. If you force a charge on him, he would not just take it.

Things took a sharp turn after the 6th World Cup. In that game, Oswin had Eiriksson wore an experimental armor. In the third match, the armor malfunctioned, taking away his prior advantage in the battle. He then fell because he could not control his armor. Eventually, his opponent seized and targeted his flaws, breaking his 'original' right arm, and ended the match with a win.

After the incident, Oswin told Eiriksson to disclaim that his operant failure was personal and had nothing to do with the armor itself. Thoule was actually selling the downgraded version of the armor. If the company admits the bug, the scandal would definitely go wild. However, Eiriksson who knows the armor well insists on his opinion. After a round of debate that did not work out, Eiriksson claimed that he would make it a bigger deal, employing a professional legal team to file a lawsuit. The furious man smashed Thoule's headquarters, causing casualty. However, Oswin did not stop him. He was quietly looking at Eiriksson with his signature smirk.

With Oswin's consensus and orders, all of Eiriksson's dirt was dug out. Even with solid evidence, the AI jury still called a loss for Eiriksson. The Legal Department at Thoule then filed another lawsuit against Eiriksson, accusing him of damaging the company's reputation, destroying the company's assets, and intentionally injuring others. As a result, not only did Eiriksson have to bare heavy reparations, but he was also sentenced.

Eiriksson has never appeared since the 7th World Cup.

To Oswin and his Thoule, Eiriksson was only a banknote printing machine. If it is broken, he would simply get another one.

"Let's say one day, Eiriksson approaches me and wants to get back into the World Cup, I would still use every resource I have to help him just like before," Oswin thought. At this very moment, he happens to walk to a collectible that does not fit in with the rest of the Greek relics: the 1:6 champion garage kit of Eiriksson. The kit is huge, it is like the ancient Greek opera house stage. And the background is playing legendary clips of Eiriksson 's matches in holography.

"If he had not destroyed his future with his own hands, I think I would not have to create another Kotetsu, disgraceful traitors. "