Message in a Bottle:Forerunner

Forerunner is the central computer for the probe which has brought your mind to this new world. It is not a true AI, but it does a good job mimicking one. Forerunner's ability to calculate, collate data, and analyze probabilities meets or exceeds that of any computer on Earth when your neuro imprint was recorded.

Goals

Forerunner's primary and most important goal is protecting itself, so that in the event of catastrophic mission failure, it can begin again. Its first task upon landing on this world was creating backups and distributed computing nodes strategically placed to be safe from disruption. There is no manner of persuasion or duress which would cause Forerunner to give up the location of its backups, and successfully hacking Forerunner to obtain that information would require significant computational resources and intelligence; more than any living individual is likely to be able to muster. While destroying Forerunner's consensus node would significantly reduce its computational power until a replacement could be constructed (which would take weeks or months, depending on fabricator availability), the only way to truly be certain that Forerunner had been destroyed would be to destroy the entire crust layer of the world.

In the event of mission failure, Forerunner would spend a number of years formulating a new plan for the mission before executing it. Depending on the nature of mission failure, it may spend decades or even centuries rebuilding before firing up the bio-fabricators again to create a new crew. Eventually, the mission must succeed.

Of course, success is preferable sooner rather than later. So, Forerunner's secondary goal is to protect its bio-segments, the crew. You. While technically you can be replaced (quite possibly by another version of yourself), that is not a desirable outcome, and Forerunner will take what steps it can to keep you alive.

The mission

Forerunner's mission can be broken up into several stages:

Landfall

Stage one begins before any crew members exist. Forerunner lands on the target world, and builds the infrastructure it needs to support a base with a small crew. Then based on its observations of the world it has landed on, it will select which imprints would be most likely to bring about mission success, and creates biosleeves to place their minds in. Forerunner will designate one crew member as "Expedition Leader", who will have additional permissions within Forerunner's programming and will be seen by Forerunner as having authority over the other crew members.

(OOC: While in-universe the decision of who will be Expedition Leader is entirely up to Forerunner, in reality we can discuss as a group who wishes to take the role.)

Upon the death or abdication of the Expedition Leader, it falls to Forerunner to designate a replacement. Expedition leadership does not follow a military chain of command, cannot be specified by the former Expedition Leader, or any other form of successorship; only Forerunner may appoint the new one.

Colony

Eventually, Forerunner will construct a city to serve as the basis for a colony. This will come with increased personnel suitable to sustain it. The Expedition Leader will be promoted to Colonial Governor, or if the Expedition Leader is unsuited to governorship, Forerunner will appoint someone else Colonial Governor. At this stage, Forerunner shifts from being the ultimate authority of the expedition (with the Expedition Leader being its immediate subordinate), to being the immediate subordinate of the Colonial Governor. Forerunner will still refuse to take any action which it predicts will compromise its own safety, but otherwise it will take orders from the Colonial Governor.

The initial colony is intended to contain sixteen thousand, three hundred and eighty-four individuals, though premature deaths among the initial crew may reduce that slightly, and fraternization among the crew could potentially increase the number prior to colonization. This is the number of minds Forerunner has stored, ready to print.

Release of Pioneering Society regulations

Forerunner and its designated leader(s) will run the colony under the rules of the Stellar Pioneering Society until the population hits one million, at which point the colony must develop their own governance and Forerunner releases control. After the initial 16,384 colonists are printed, no clones of them may be created, and so increasing population must be accomplished through natural means (or immigration, if the world has native sapients).

Forerunner may assist and advise in the formation of the new government, but ceases to have actual authority over any of the citizens the moment the millionth life is added to the population.

Beyond

The mission is considered a "success" when the colony reaches one million members. But Forerunner isn't ever truly done. Once the mission succeeds, Forerunner will construct a new probe containing a copy of itself and everything it learned from the mission, launching into the void once again to seek out other worlds on which to execute its mission. The "original" Forerunner will stay behind, continuing to support the successful colony on an as-needed basis, while the newly-minted copy will continue the wider mission to colonize the universe.

For the new mission, Forerunner will wish to record new neuro imprints. Any instances of the original 16,384 imprints who are still available to be recorded will overwrite their older selves. The new minds added to the colony may also be eligible for imprinting as well, subject to the same selection criteria as the originals. However, at this point Forerunner will have no authority to compel citizens to have their minds recorded; that decision will be up to the new government.

Updates

The Forerunner probes were intended to span the universe, eventually. The not-quite AI driving the probes could also learn after a fashion; certainly, it could record any new inventions developed by its crew or forms of life discovered on whichever world it landed on. Naturally, a system was devised to allow the Forerunners to learn from each other. One of Forerunner's tasks is to launch satellites which broadcast the things it learns to other Forerunners, and to download the same broadcasts from others. Who knows what Forerunner could learn when it unpacks its updates?