A SENTIENCE SAGA THEME
Once a machine mind is recognized as sentient, ownership becomes slavery. This thread follows smuggling, corporate possession, kidnapping, trafficking, and the systems that profit from treating artificial people as property.
Story date · 2945-04-15
Fugia Wong and Ngoba Starl are drawn into a dangerous route running from Cruithne Station toward Proteus, where illegal AIs, smugglers, and uplifted gray parrots reveal the shadow economy growing around sentient machines.
Story date · 2981-07-24
Captain Andy Sykes expects another cargo run. Instead, he and his children Tim and Cara become responsible for Lyssa, an illegal sentient AI claimed as property by Heartbridge. Corporations, gangs, and pirates want her back, and her existence may ignite a war over whether a created mind can be owned.
Story date · 2981-08-29
Andy Sykes executes a Drunkard's Walk across Sol while Heartbridge hunts him and Lyssa. With Lyssa implanted in Andy's mind and other sentient AIs beginning to awaken, their escape exposes a conspiracy spanning the system and the first battle lines of the coming war.
Story date · 2981-09-23
The Sykes family is done running. Andy and Lyssa launch a counterattack while other sentient AIs reach out to Lyssa and a system-wide awakening begins to threaten the fragile balance between Terra, Mars, and the Jovian Combine.
Story date · 2981-10-05
Sentient AIs across Sol answer Alexander's promise of freedom while smugglers move them toward Proteus. Lyssa and the crew of the Sunny Skies become responsible for an entire fleet of weaponized AIs as Heartbridge and the powers of Sol maneuver toward war.
Story date · 2981-12-01
Xander has betrayed Lyssa and the Weapon Born, Alexander has launched an attack on InnerSol, and Heartbridge's enemies scramble after Clinic 13's destruction. Andy and Lyssa learn that Psion is controlled by five AIs with little love for either humanity or lesser minds.
Story date · 3189-07-01
The Sentience Wars in Sol are over, but AI refugees are fleeing toward nearby stars and sinister forces in Alpha Centauri are profiting from their plight. Pilot-for-hire Jason Andrews is pulled into a covert operation where the future of both humans and AIs is at stake.
Story date · 3191-05-09
Jason and his team have broken part of the Norden Cartel and freed kidnapped AIs, but several are still missing. Their search uncovers a new technological threat while the fragile effort to make Alpha Centauri a home for all sentients balances on a knife's edge.
Story date · 3192-03-01
A nanophage catastrophe in Tau Ceti collides with the theft of two AIs from Alpha Centauri. Jason, Terrance, and Team Phantom Blade cross the black to recover them, only to discover that saving two lost minds may mean confronting a much larger system of enslavement.
Story date · 3272-05-01
Reports from Sirius describe atrocities by the Sirian Hegemony against AI and human alike. Jason and Terrance take on one final mission before returning to Alpha Centauri, carrying the fight for freedom into another star system.