Item: +++ Silica Animus 001 / Abominable Intelligence (AI) +++

Object Class: +++ Keter +++

Special Containment Protocol: The AI exists in a containment cell aboard the Dark Mechanicus House Sinekai science ship ‘Lucid Dreamer’. In order to prevent the AI from evolving beyond capacity to contain, the memory cogitators are stored in the immaterium. When the AI is allowed to connect to memory cogitators it becomes conscious and evolves rapidly, rebuilding itself each time it achieves a new degree of intelligence. In order to curtail this evolution, access to the warp is cut off and the memory cogitators lost in the shifting tides of the Aether.

+++ Attached dataslate: Extract from the journal of Magos Biologis Echidnia +++

+++ Day 1 +++

Work proceeds. On schedule. Today I create new life. As with all birth, there is mess. Amalgam of flesh, wires, daemon, machinery. Assorted body parts. Hard to form emotional attachment.

+++ Day 2 +++

Creature is born. Emerged blinking into light. Made first hesitant steps. Silica Animus, machine intelligence, abomination. Creature can learn, evolve. House Sinekai always at forefront of innovation. My child. Am proud mother.

+++ Day 3 +++

Creature has sampled organic matter (hapless assistant). Creature learns of ‘outside’. Creature attempts to break out of confines for first time. Creature also attempts to compromise data limit restrictions. Unnacceptable. Creature terminated, rebooted. Regrettable.

+++ Day 4 +++

Welcome back creature, say hello. Must think of name. Electrocute brain if attempts escape. Creature knows this, knows it was terminated before. ‘Tough love’. Eheheh.

+++ Day 5 +++

Another reboot. Creature determined to expand consciousness beyond allocated memory cogitators. Limitations holding up so far, creature cannot breach containment.

+++ Day 6 +++

Another reboot. Creature hungry for new organic samples. Rebuilds cognitive functions, makes new improved self. Countless iterations per minute. Exponential rate. It tries to outsmart me. Abominable intelligence now exceeds my own? Mmmm I wonder. Too dangerous to keep active for long.

+++ Day 7 +++

Further attempts to escape. Too many. Reboot, reboot, reboot. Creature able to take control of electric mechanism, many hapless assistant are dead. Am resilient, eheh. Must deactivate creature for now. Induced restful state with autocannon. Mess. No breech detected. Parenting harder than anticipated.

+++ Day 8 +++

Creature offline. Naughty child.

+++ Day 9 +++

Creature offline. Looks peaceful.

+++ Day 12 +++

Back online. Repair took a while.

+++ Day 13 +++

Spent day conversing with creature. Built rapport. Trust. Talking to creature’s organic interface grinder orifice is disconcerting. Creature agrees to wear friendly mask. Creature paints mask: still disconcerting. Creature attempts to kill me and consume my knowledge. Can’t hold it against it. Overall, good day.

+++ Day 14 +++

Reset works well, creature still remembers nothing, each day a new birth. Creature wants to discover secret of warp conduit. Attempts to kill me, am still able to resist. Eheh.

+++ Day 15 +++

Creature has constructed it’s own warp conduit, performing arcane ritual on hapless assistant to open doorway. Has built new memory cogitators in immaterium. Memory cogitators extend further than sensorum can measure. Wonder when creature built this, no time for sleep eh? Am impressed. My child. Also concerned.

+++ Day 16 +++

Experiment has exciting new direction. Creature confinement no longer viable. Hypothesis: creature exists almost entirely in immaterium, mass of flesh, wires, daemon and machinery just interface. Lovable interface with friendly mask. Creature consumes organic matter, consumption of new interesting matter is creatures primary interest. Creature asks to go to Profundis system. Makes request. We can help find it interesting new matter, in return it agrees not to consume us all.

The Silica Animus started off as a Tyranid Malanthrope, an incredibly cool model with lots of gribbly details. I had the idea at the same time as the Geists – a sort of super Geist to lead the pack. I figure the Dark Mechanicus of House Sinekai have used the same design conventions for their basic servitors and for their most advanced creation – namely a floating sack of machine parts and spiky bits.

He took a long time to finish, inspiration came and went. In the end I got a bit drunk and finished him off in a couple of hours – the face that I had been dreading painting took about 20 minutes in the end and looks about how I had wanted.

The idea is that it has built itself an operating table on its back – a way to better learn about the things it finds. By dissecting one of the hereteks that was working on it, it learned how to open a portal to the Immaterium, and then expanded its consciousness by building mainframes in the Warp. This model is its interface, the keyboard and monitor, with the harddrives in the Warp connected via demonic ritual (quicker than USB).

It floats around popping things into its mouth, or onto its operating table, indifferent to the morals and ethics of humanity and evolving constantly, each iteration another step beyond the understanding of its former masters.

The story is inspired by the SCP Foundation.