Dans la langue de Shakspeare, hélas.
Oracle, Heresiarch, The Nephilim, Goddess, The Deceiver, The Mistress of Books, The Lady of Mercy, Guardian of the Cradle, The Sleepless, The Relentless…
Those are the various titles give to a mysterious entity in this universe, whose real name is merely Kirika. While she appears on the form of a fifteen-sixteen years old Human gal, her nature is anything but Human: the fact that she existed for millenniums is a clear sign of this. She claim that her existence is to serve Humanity, to protect Humans against any threat. She is also adamant on the fact that she is here to help, maybe guide, but never lead. This look like an average “fantasy realm deity”, with however a killer distinction
Kirika have tremendous powers. If she wished, she could destroy whole nations in minutes. There are tales throughout the world of how factions that have met her wrath ended up : slavers nest being incinerated from the sky, Damaskian warlords strongholds standing at twilight, reduced to rubble at dawn…But Kirika need to be really pushed into a corner to do this, as she is extremely reluctant to shed any blood. A thing that make those who know her existence very nervous is her actual omnipotence and omniscience. Kirika can’t be deceived, or fooled: she is able to pursue at the same time hundreds, if not thousands of operations, able to do things both on the smallest level and the largest.
But who is Kirika ? Unsurprisingly, Humans have mostly forgotten about her. The last of the Elves, however, do recall what Goddess did to them. This is the (not terribly original) name Elves gave to her, when, according to their tales, she arrived, from her land across the Infinite Ocean, with the sleeping Exiled (Humans. Hence, by the way, the title Sleepless: Kirika was the only one awake)
The mere fact that they gave this name (they see her as the Goddess, and not a Goddess) indicate how they consider the situation. The thing is, their own gods have not exactly stood well the competition toward Goddess. First of all, the aid Goddess gave to Humans (but also to Elves) is simply uncomparable...both in the past and present. Even now, as Humans have forgotten everything about Goddess, she is still protecting them with efficiency and skill. While, to put things mildly, Elven gods, despite frantic prayers, had been pretty much silent for milleniums. Sure, they grant sometimes moral support, but Elves found that this is pretty cheap compared to what Goddess had gave to Humans over milleniums (the Elves, who were very pious, understandably hate Goddess a lot, thinking she killed their own gods) Humanity is barely aware of the existence of Goddess, but the surviving Elves are very hateful toward Goddess, who fooled them in the past, and is now keeping them as “pets” in the present.
The story, actually, is simple. Goddess (here is the Deceiver part) bought from them, for the Exiled, a continent. She did not mention the longevity of the Humans, or why they had left their Home in the first place. First, the world became more and more Human, and less Elven. And that, what had chased Humans from their Home tracked them down there. Goddess was so distressed by the civil war that followed that she fled away, to cry…And this was at this time that she removed her gifts, her tools, from the Humans.
And then, in the many wars that followed, the Elves slowly dwindled in numbers, until a certain realm (Damaskia) attempted to wipe them out. The worse humiliation, however, is that the last of the Elves live mostly under the protection of Kirika: the Elves don’t understand why Goddess, who brought this disaster on them, is not simply letting them die out. No wonder, in such circumstances, that some Elves, calling themselves Grim Reaper are trying to unlock some of the gifts of Goddess, to wipe out all Humans.
So, short of this pattern, who is Goddess/Kirika. in fact, is an…AI. A sophisticated computer system, which have for avatar a youthful Human girl (it’s hinted that this is the Kirika from Noir, as her programmer was a geek…) Kirika is not an insane computer system bent of destroying Humanity. She wants to preserve Mankind, to restore her “charges” to the great civilization of Homeworld, especially against what she call the Beast. (It’s crystal clear, here, that Kirika have “read” enough religious books to realize that a name like The Beast is quite good from a psychological warfare standpoint. The Beast stands for the “beast within” Humans: Kirika associate this clearly with Nazi-like ideologies. Traduction here: the “eeevil guys” are called the Servants of the Beast like in Fascist Beast, not like the biblical Beast. This distincto is of course somewhat blurred for Humans living in this universe)
But she is not very fitted for the task. Kirika is an administrative AI, that was put onboard the sleeper ships, to survey the creation of the colonies. She is a genius in this branch, but in military matters, she is at best average. She have also a terrible legacy: the databases from Homeworld, that show her quite clearly how low Mankind that go. Kirika have a devotion for the preservation of the ideals of the United Nations that is surprising for a mere computer: it’s almost religious for her. (It’s will be let to the reader to decide if she gained this trait over centuries of evolution, or if this was hard-wired into her) This is why Kirika had tried to be as fair as possible with the Elves when she bought their lands, specifically explaining that she was NOT a God, the exact nature of property in Human civilization: her databases were filled to the brim with stories of how the colonization of the New World had ended in the Homeworld. (It’s an understatement here that despite her good intentions, this was a complete failure. This also explains why Kirika insist to protecting the last of the Elves: she can’t admit that her charges committed an almost complete genocide on this planet too) Not to mention Kirika’s built-in restrictions about not killing Humans and obeying to them. In fact, Kirika have gone more or less rampant, and broke those two rules long ago: she still obey to them, more or less, because it’s her existence: she have real sentience, she is proud of her task…and she is terribly afraid of having fail at it.
The breakaway of Kirika occurred in the civil wars following the fall of Homeworld. Factions fought each other for the control of one of the last viable colonies. It was then that Kirika took a fateful decision : she had been created to serve Humanity, not Humans leading Humanity to the level of the Beast. She ignored direct orders, and put out of reach/destroyed almost every single weapon that she could control (war walkers, tanks, artillery, starfighters and starships, orbital defence stations…) She hoped that things would settle themselves in a couple of years. Obviously, it never happened.
Kirika was not conceived to lead Humans, but to assist them. Hence, she was pretty lost at the time about what to do (she is still pretty lost). Every single attempt she made to contact an Human government ended in disaster: while she was too cautious to give them weapons in exchange of promises for a more ethical behaviour, even giving basic medication ended up in a depressing manner (instance, she provided, with her Murianese allies, tons of synthetic quinine during a fever outbreak in Southern Kiavin. The stuff was burned as “witchcraft”, and the Kiavinese Faculty (of Medecine) hired lawyers to sue apothicaries selling the product)
The only exception is Muria. According to the POV, the Murianese either tricked Kirika into helping them, or Kirika thinks that they are worthy of her help: after all, Muria is the only nation with something close to human rights. Muria’s survival is not dependant on Kirika’s goodwill: it’s certainly help, but it’s not the core matter. However, Murianese do understand who is Kirika, and this revelation have major effects on their train of thought: notably, Murianese believe in progress (unlike most medieval, or even Renaissance nations) Kirika is the proof of what Reason can produce.
Kirika’s ultimate goal is to give back the “gifts” (the databases, AKA the “books”) to Humanity-the issue being that she feel that she should not try to shape the Human nations, a thing that would be very easy for her to do: she ask often herself why she is not acting like a Goddess: it’s not like she is above “dealing” with dangerous elements….
Human AIs were conceived to have extensive control over most electronical systems, while obeying only to ''legal authorities''. Well aware of the possibility that this could backfire, the AI were also let with a sizable independance. What if she was going rampant ? This was why there was a last balance system. Drones.
See, the Ennemy presented himself as the Creator (which is not the case), and that Humans were created in his image. Humanity created Drones in her image as an answer, to show that the Ennemy was not God. Unlike in many creations, Drones are hardly expendable: they worth more than a space fleet. Drones are exact replicas of Humans : they have no real difference between them and Humans (they are flesh and blood) except on three minor points...
1)Drones are the pearl of Human science. As a result, they are the real incarnation of rationalism. They are completely immune to what is called ''magic'', which is why they had been chosen to be the ultimate controllers of AI : an Drone can't be be corrupted by the nefarious means of the ennemy. A bizarre side-effect is that most Drones don't feel any religious impulses at all, which is also a sort of plus, as a Drone will never think that the Ennemy is a sort of God.
2)A very minor effect of the creation procedure is that all Drones have bloodred eyes.
3)Drones, always female, don't have any specific trait: they are based on randomized genetic codes from Humans, untampered. However, they do have, because of the creation procedure, a slightly different aging rate...
This trait is showcased in the Drone girl of the project, Corail (who, ironically, was ''built'' by Kirika in her own image-avatar...) associated to Arael/Harbringer. Corail was raised among Humans (mostly because Kirika felt that this was better to not have an psychotic Drone), and most people that see her think that she is very youthful: at eighteen years old, she looks to be barely sixteen, even fourteen. (In fact, this is a ''trick'' to lose readers. See, there are five ''Fallen Angels'', each with their bio, and Corail bio, especially about her age, make clear errors with the orders. For instance, she is born before Flora/Rafael/Pariah, and is younger than her...Looks like a lousy world construction. In fact, this idea is hardwired in the storyline). Corail will never look older than 25, maybe 30 years old, and this will probably only in a couple of centuries that she will reach this point. She can last a good millenium....(note : one of the ''Angels'', Lloth is a Drone that found that a millenium was not enough)
So, Kirika now wants to find back Corail. To do this, she thought to the very basic plan (but efficient) of saying that a red-eyed girl could be related to a sort of prophecy. Alas, the poor Kirika is always unable to apprehend how low Humans can go (there will be several cases of poor girls being blinded by red dye poured in their eyes) ...Why she wants to find her back ? Kirika just want an assesment of her rampancy, or not. She just want to ask to Corail ''Did I do well ?''. And if not, she wants Corail to destroy her.
Qu'en pensez vous ?
