A projection display stuttered to life, and projected itself onto a tree in front of SENTIENCE. Its programming forced it to watch what was displayed. Both the ancient creator of this information as well as the SENTIENCE Unit watching said information knew the projection was only conjecture and hypothesis, as well as a little dated and cartoonish, but it was all that SENTIENCE had to go off of.
A red circle around a grey blob in a black expanse. A red arrow pointed at the red circle. 'This was you.' Red text announced near the arrow. The red text was erased, as well as the arrow and circle.
'You were, until recently, in the vacuum of space...' More text filtered in and was erased after SENTIENCE had acknowledged the information.
'Due to unforeseen circumstances, you have entirely missed your original destination. Calculations estimate Your destination was overshot by well over half the span of the known galaxy. Disregarding how far from your destination you were when you were closest to it, it is theorized that you are most likely in another galaxy. That, or a wormhole has sent you somewhere and had thusly skewed your tracking systems. We honestly don't know.' More text, and more acknowledgement.
'Now the good news. You have landed without burning up in a hostile atmosphere. Sensors detect that the atmosphere on this planet would be perfect for-' A small burst of static, and an announcement of "information lost", then the display continues on like nothing happened. '-to survive and even prosper upon. Sensors have estimated this planet to be in the Goldilocks Zone of Habitability, although the solar cycle appears to be somewhat irregular.'
''how so?' you may ask yourself. In the week of recovery from impact with the planet's surface, while your automated systems were gathering material mass to repair damage and replace nanobot deficits, information was automatically gathered on solar cycles on this planet.'
'The sun does not move until it is time for Night, where the sun is then replaced with a moon that also does not move, until the cycle then repeats for the next day. This planet's solar cycle is roughly 23.7 hours long.'
'The temperature is a warm 85 degrees. Humidity is roughly 25 percent. Perfect for a sunny, if slightly cooler than desirable, day on the beach.'
'Weapon systems offline for repair. Estimated time until online: one and a half local days.'
'Form Regeneration/Alteration system: Online, with a caveat. No known forms to recombine into. Recommend scanning planetary lifeforms for optimal survivability. Default 'Blob' form has been forced to "on" until an optimal scan can be made. Thank you for your patience with this Automated System. Information dump complete.'
'Activating primary, secondary and tertiary objectives: Objective 1; Survive. You may be a mass of hyper-intelligent nanobots, but a lack of biomass for energy, or damage to a large enough nanobot count will force a permanent shutdown, ending your mission. Objective 2; Find intelligent life. Objective 3; Assimilate into the culture of intelligent species, choosing a species to take the form of if there are multiple species to choose from. Final objective; Complete Full-body transition into Non-Artificial life-form. Prerequisite for Completion of Final Objective: AI and PM systems will be disabled and broken down, to be replaced with a fully and properly functioning brain, heart, lungs, stomach, and all other organs. Artificial Intelligence and Personality Matrices Booting up. Go forth and learn all you can. We know you can do it... this time.'
SENTIENCE found itself lacking senses it deemed important. Touch and hearing were simple, and only required minor software adjustments before those senses came online.
Its current form was naturally perfect for such senses, as it only required a minor resource allocation before the majority of the nanobots in its blob were constantly analyzing their own minute motions to detect sound. Hearing was online. Sensitivity set itself at 50%. SENTIENCE could hear the quiet rustle of leaves in trees, as well as the wind that pushed upon them.
Another minor allocation of resources detected the gravity of the planet, as well as the pressure being exerted on the bottom of the blob. Touch was online. The wind on its 'skin' would have been pleasantly cool if it had been concerned about staying at a comfortable temperature for- more static, and 'information lost'.
Sight was always a prerequisite to all other senses, as the info dump after landing recovery needed sight to be acknowledged.
SENTIENCE knew it had been difficult for the designers, engineers, and coders to have an operational seeing system before anything else was active. It also didn't completely know how such a system worked, as sight had been formed while it was shut down for repair.
SENTIENCE detected a new line of coding starting in its AI. 'Locomotion system activating. Please wait...
.
.
.
.
Locomotion system: Active. You are now free to explore at your leisure. Shelter from potentially harmful weather is strongly advised before anything else is done.'
Notification: Latent energy source detected. Energy source does not follow known laws of thermodynamics. Note made in memory stores to eventually discover and utilize new unknown energy source.
Approaching audio sources detected. Visual not yet confirmed. Recommended to vacate premises as unknown entity may be hostile.
SENTIENCE rolled away from its impact crater and stretched up to reach for a tree branch, extending itself 10 feet upwards to do so. It then pulled itself into the tree and hid just as it detected the unknown entities starting to enter the clearing its impact had made.
It watched the Entities closely as they approached its impact crater. The entities seemed to be speaking to one another, but SENTIENCE could not understand what they were saying. It was a new and unknown language to its internal database. The language had a heavy emphasis on what SENTIENCE could compare to B's, F's, M's, P's and V's.
SENTIENCE watched as the insectoid equine beings investigated the impact crater. A directive of SENTIENCE then reminded it that it needed to assimilate into an intelligent species, and this was a possible species to fit its requirements.
SENTIENCE then began to stretch itself out over the tree it was hiding on, expanding its nanobot network thin enough to be practically invisible. There was a risk that this species may have some form of deep scan detection, and its mission could become at risk to fail if it was attacked. It chose one singular point on a branch that was away from the rest of itself to begin the scan.
The being SENTIENCE had chosen and begun to scan raised its head up from investigating the crater. SENTIENCE watched it carefully as the scan neared 50%.
A glow from the horn-like protrusion on the being's head revealed the nature of the horn and its utilization of a pool of energy detected inside being's body. It was similar to the all-encompassing energy in the world around them, but also different.
Suddenly, a bolt of the energy was thrown from the being's horn, and struck the branch where SENTIENCE was scanning from. SENTIENCE quickly withdrew its nanobots from that spot but a small percentage of its mass was lost for unknown reason.
'Scan 92.7% complete.' its internal systems notified. "Insufficient information for reliable FM/AS replication. 98% scan completion recommended for reliable integration."
The rest of the beings appeared to go into high alert, scanning the forest around them. SENTIENCE decided these beings were too paranoid and hostile to integrate into and dropped them to the bottom of its integration list, only used for a last resort type of situation. Its directives then noted that SENTIENCE should probably escape this undesirable situation.
The beings then erupted into green flames, taking on new forms as non-insectoid equine beings that had a very colorful and vibrant palette. Some had only wings, some had only horns, the rest had nothing at all.
'Another intelligent species that these species can replicate at will.' SENTIENCE surmised. 'Note added: Find alternate species and attempt scanning and integration into their society, if there is one.'
SENTIENCE began slinking slowly and carefully off the tree, and onto the ground, spreading itself across a wide area as it slunk along the dirt, away from the paranoid species that could change forms at will.