Introduction

AXKZ-1029 sat down at the console. The blinking light on the screen seemed to be taunting him. With a deep sigh, he pressed one of the myriad of keys laid out in front of him. The monitor flickered to life in an instant.

… Initializing … Preparing Documents … Translating … Interface Ready. Please Log In.

AXKZ-1029 (although he typically shortened his name to simply AXKZ, much to the chagrin of his superiors) entered in his credentials. A large logo appeared on screen. “Human Research Program,” he thought. “What a joke.” Sure, the council played up his new role like it was some big honor, but he knew the truth. This was all a clever form of punishment for his unwillingness to take orders. To his dismay, it already seemed to be working. He felt like he would do anything to escape the prison that was this chair. “Really,” he questioned, “what can we possibly learn from so far in the past? Why are we wasting resources on this when we could be forging forward with something useful, like technology or weaponry?” Finally, he resigned himself to the task at hand and looked up to the screen.

His goal was to find out what made humans, well, human. What separated them from the other races of the galaxy and how did they rise to intergalactic prominence so quickly? AXKZ looked out the large window at the tiny planet they were orbiting. “Did so much truly come from a place so small? Intriguing. Perhaps this won’t be a complete bore.”

The supercomputer on board this vessel, SHIP-2XT4H, did much of AXKZ’s work for him. It searched through the vast archives of human knowledge, looking for common themes and ideas that brought to light what gave humanity its core essence. Then, it found the writings that best exemplified these unique traits and compiled them into a single, easily accessible database on the ship. Each story touched on some key element of what made humans human. It explored the traits that made them tick, the traits which made them unique and separate (although inferior) to his people. All AXKZ had to do was delve into this collection and come away with a knowledge of the old humans that he could present to the council. What they planned to do with such inane information, he did not know.

He checked the screen again. That was the only problem with trying to access records that old: they took a very large time to assimilate. They had to be tracked down on the old ‘Internet’ service that had been set up on Earth, and then beamed up to the ship, where the computer had to translate it into a form AXKZ could read, and finally display it. Now that he thought about it, AXKZ wondered how that old ‘Internet’ service was even still running. Somewhere, a self-powered server or two must still be chugging along. No wonder this was taking nigh on an eternity to load.

At last, the monitor gave him some indication that it was still processing.

… Loading First Record … Parsing Data … Preparing Readable Form … Form Now Matching Standards … Ready. Now Displaying Record … C … a … s … t … o … r …

AXKZ decided now was a good time for a bit of a stretch. This may take a while to load.

Pictoral Archive Information: Gliese 849, Alexander House, 2011

'Internet' Location: Alliance United Planets