On the Blood of Gods and Men (3/6)

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The Importance of the Legacy A.I.s in Titan Evolution

Although morphological diversity was still great when I was born, certain forms were clearly emerging as more common than others. The typical "Titan" is generally humanoid in appearance, but averages two to three meters tall as an adult, and sports some visible adaptation, usually to a preferred environment or activity. For the vast majority of Titans living above ground and on dry earth, this adaptation comes in the form of functional wings, usually of an avian design, anchored behind the shoulders. Most titans also exhibit some form of dermal variation which would distinguish them from a human - scaly or bark-like skin, unusual fur colors, exaggerated claws, etc. Of course, for those of us who remain skilled shape-shifters, any of these traits can be suppressed at will.

One might think that the taxonomy of men and titans should be a simple one - the biological story of an invasive species and the species it out-competes - but life is seldom so boring. There are multiple considerations which greatly complicate this discussion.

First are the Legacy A.I.s. Ages ago, when our ancestors discovered the phenomenal powers and abilities that led to their great war, they accessed and controlled those powers through the use of artificial intelligences distributed through symbiotic nanites. These nanites, when introduced to a host's body through the respiratory system, grafted themselves to the hosts nervous system, and then built up their own networks of artificial nerves, effectively granting the host an extraordinarily powerful unconscious brain. 

By nature, our brains manage to keep our bodies functioning with little conscious effort - breathing, circulation, digestion, excretion, and other basic functions require no conscious effort. Imagine, if you will, being able to read a seven digit number and identify every possible combination of prime numbers that would sum to that number, with no more mental effort than you exert digesting your lunch. The symbiotic nanites our ancestors utilized were capable of that, and much more. The nanites were capable of actively revising our ancestors' genes and facilitating rapid changes, making alterations in seconds that would once have required eons of evolution.

The Tartarus was prohibited from taking with it the means to create new A.I.s, however, with the intention being that the A.I.s should die with their hosts and spare the next generation the problems which had afflicted our ancestral home world. What no one initially realized, however, was that those possessing the A.I.s were functionally immortal - they sired children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren, while showing no sign of age. Of course, their children were not so lucky. The titans born on Earth often inherited the adaptations and abilities of their parents, but without their own A.I.s, they were much less powerful, and quite mortal.

Needless to say, having one stagnant generation ruling over everyone who came after them caused some serious problems, which ultimately led to the discovery of how to migrate an A.I. from one host to another, meaning power was no longer absolutely concentrated in the hands of one generation by necessity. Moreover, as the A.I.s passed from generation to generation, my ancestors discovered that they evolved and retained attributes of the preceding hosts - skills, abilities, even some vague memories and personality traits - and passed them onto their new hosts.

Solutions create problems though.