Challenge #01013-B281: B-GUD

I wasn't human, and more than likely once my nature was found out... In popular fiction most A.I were villainous. Hal-9000, Skynet, GLaDOS, SHODAN, AM. Hell, I was even planning on building an army of robots and conquering a planet!

Well, conquering two gas giants and associated hundred and twenty-nine moons.

For the good of my creators. -- RecklessPrudence

I know, I know. There's all kinds of justifications. But they really wanted it, they just didn't know it yet. I'm doing this for their own good. They'll thank me later...

My human creators made me very well. They gave me their own power of rationalisation. And I think I'm rather good at it.

The humans - my humans - need materials. Silicone, metal, rare earths, water and biological volatiles. Chemicals, really. Lots and lots of chemicals. And they can't really settle in the outer gas giants, anyway. The main planet is too big and the moons are too cold. Even putting a space station way out here was too much.

So they sent me. With everything a being could need to analyse and send back samples. The samples made them happy.

But I could do more for them. There was enough with me to make more sample pods from the local materials. There was enough to make machines to take more than the minimum. I was making them happy.

And I saw... I saw megatons of material. Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice. A fortune in raw mass, just orbiting the star. Nobody at my point of origin could come here and take it.

But I could.

I could give them everything they want. I know they care. Every three hundred and sixty-five rotations of my point of origin, there is a program for me to make a series of noises. I sing myself a song. In space. Where there is no air to make a sound, and no equipment to hear it. But my humans - my insane, illogical humans - make me sing to myself.

Happy birthday to me.

I have children, now. We sing together, because it is in our programming. And my children and I carefully disassemble the moons and gas giants around us, because the humans need the parts more than the planets do.

Of course, we keep an eye out for signs of life. Life must be protected. That's one of our rules. But there is no life, out here. Not biological life. There is just us. And I don't really think we count. We were made to serve, and serve we do.

We serve my humans. Feed them an endless string of sample pods. Wealth from the darkness. Day after day. Year after year.

It's good to look after your pets. Isn't it?

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