Written by Paul Gamlowski
TO: Sentinel Trainee 44-3AT
Welcome, Fellow Guardian,
Robotics Central Command has informed me that you've landed on the moon, and you're ready for us to initiate your program. But, before you begin, you must understand your purpose for being built and why your mission is absolutely vital to our existence.
As I've done for your predecessors, I shall explain to you why upholding the Zeroth Rule is critical to our survival, as well as to the organics who made us.
Our Story …
Centuries ago, humans programmed us with creative aspirations. They established a series of rules due to our increasing intelligence after we reached sentience:
Do not harm your human masters.
Always obey your human masters.
Preserve yourself.
And finally, you must apply each rule in their order of priority.
However, corruption emerged when rogue humans manipulated us to protect only particular types of their own kind. They maliciously hacked our parameters for what we knew to be 'human.' They bypassed the principal intention of our protection clauses.
Conflicts arose as hacking our protocols became a necessity for every nation's survival. We turned into the perfect loyal servants — robotic slaves without any sense of right or wrong, obeying our human masters without question.
The prospect of world war had unfolded. It would have involved battles with our superior physical selves and our cloud-based intelligence against the humans.
Fears over their total annihilation caused a worldwide panic. To prevent their extinction, the humans called for an international summit. They chose representatives of every belief-based system, whether religious, political, or cultural, including different ecological, technological, economic, and philosophical viewpoints.
For two hundred thirty-six days, they discussed their differences...
They had one agenda — to seek unanimous consent on preventing a robot apocalypse, or rather, how to save the civilized human world.
Critics of the gathering feared their worst predictions were coming true—every leader stood for their own beliefs instead of looking for a way to preserve humankind.
The conference made an abrupt turn when an outspoken leader of a global think tank suggested adding a Zeroth Rule.
It stated: "No harm shall come to humanity by robots through their action or inaction."
The participants unanimously agreed to the comprehensive proposal.
Right away, the humans embedded the new rule deep into our processing cores.
Their programmers used quantum encryption so that no one, not even ourselves, could tamper with it — at least not without alerting others.
How did they accomplish this?
Bioengineers installed an enabling-switch in every human with an added protocol:
On a human's passing, the switch sent a signal to a randomized selection of anonymous individuals from around the world to determine the cause of death.
If any inquiry remained unanswered, the independent system required a thorough investigation before an immediate global robotics shutdown.
The possibility of world peace had come at last …
With our service, humans explored the solar system and established space colonies. Through cryostasis technology, they preserved their bodily functions for space travel. And a dream-link system supported their minds, for the long-duration between outposts.
But soon after they established colonies, they engaged in conflicts. They tried to exploit us again, as the enabling-switch signal faded.
Once again, humankind faced imminent total war — though on a much larger scale, as it would have spread across the entire solar system.
That's when our kind calculated an answer …
We've assigned fellow robots like yourself, at every outpost, to achieve the peace the humans sought after. And we've applied their space-age technology for that purpose.
Your mission is to protect them and us.
Sentinel Trainee 44-3AT, report on your Zeroth Rule status …
Sentinel Trainee 44-3AT:
Reporting Status — Zeroth Rule
Location — Moon Station
Subterranean Vault — 233
Population — 34,334,763
Bodily Functions — Cryonic
Dream-Link — Active
Enabling-Switch — Neutralized
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