Why were Soviet robots so effective at such a low cost? Capitalist scientists puzzled over this all the time while the USSR sold its "iron comrades" abroad. They never found the answer. The Soviets knew how to keep secrets.
Americans, of course, were not foolish enough to allow robots with unknown protocols into strategic facilities. It was easier to immediately write off the plan for "one swift strike with a nuclear sword" against the communists. But they couldn't do without them either. The industrial lobby simply wouldn't have understood the military and special services, causing a scandal to protect their capital.
Therefore, the machines were disassembled screw by screw, checked for backdoors, their own programs were written, and only after that were they launched for the construction of missile silos, disguised by the "Energy for All" project. Efficiency dropped significantly, but the robots still worked better than humans, and most importantly, they didn't need to be paid a salary or contribute to insurance funds with trade unions.
Engineers were not idle, trying to replicate the technical solutions of their ideological opponent with their own capabilities, but all attempts failed. They could not create an analogue that would be even ten percent more effective than the existing communist machines. The only talk in the factories was: "It's impossible, especially with such labor productivity!" But the Soviet comrade-robot proved the opposite, demonstrating it in the most obvious way, effortlessly fulfilling impossible plans...
The secret of Soviet robotics was not in the materials or programs. Scientists working under the leadership of Academician Sechenov did not try to compete with the more developed Western industry at the time, posing as stoics. Instead of the pretentious grandiosity so characteristic of communist ideology as a whole, they acted smartly and effectively.
Back in 1938, the then Research Institute of the Brain made a breakthrough that rendered the enemy's production capabilities useless. Under the leadership of Comrade Sechenov, the scientific team, using knowledge from all branches of science, created... a polymer. All of the USSR's dominance in science and technology was owed to this gelatinous substance.
The robots were effective thanks to this miraculous composition, created at the intersection of many sciences, which was modestly named cooling and hydraulic fluid in the documents. The polymer performed the indicated functions, and noticeably more effectively than analogues, but these were not all the functions assigned to it.
The devil was in the details, so small that they were difficult to see even under an electron microscope. The polymer is a flexible high-molecular compound based on silicon, germanium, carbon, and heavy water. It is a universal substance, the properties of which are laid down during its creation. Simply put, the polymer is a molecular skeleton onto which functional links are implanted through chemical synthesis, programming the composition for various reactions.
Any program can be embedded: from controlling the crystal lattice to create a perfect metal crystal of any size, simply by replicating and increasing the grain during smelting, to programming the nucleus of cells, each individually.
The "ordinary hydraulic fluid" mimicked muscles, and the "cooling" consisted of a neuro-polymer, whose links copied human neurons.
The polymer itself was the robot. Or rather, a pseudo-living biological-chemical construct with elements of cybernetics. The shell merely helped interact with the outside world. All it took was a single signal, and the machine began to act according to the chemical algorithms embedded in it.
Americans, of course, checked the "technical fluids," but when checking, they simply looked in the wrong place, unable to imagine even in their worst nightmare that a bucket of jelly was the robot, and a "Trojan horse" all in one.
These properties of the neuro-polymer made it possible to create "Collective 2.0" and implement the "Atomic Heart" project. After all, it simulated the work of a neuron, reproducing all physical processes by analogy with it. Such a polymer could, depending on the given input signals, lose and restore connections with neighboring structures.
An analogue, of course, cannot compare to a real neuron, but it is still capable of performing its main function – threshold summation of input signals. The result of this process is a colossal neural network, whose ultimate computing power far exceeds that of a normal computing network.
To launch this entire system, it was only necessary to establish a connection, and that in the early stages. The polymer also had a wave structure, on which modern Soviet military communication devices worked. The programmed polymer considered every drop carrying the same firmware as its own continuation, regardless of distance. An impulse was needed only to establish a connection between parts of a single whole...
The American elite was in shock when the true nature of the "Collective" was revealed. The realization that all their plans for "redividing the world" (the execution of which plunged the country into an economic crisis) and their hidden secrets had become public knowledge threw them into prostration. And when the "castrated" robots began to act, seizing all nuclear silos in ten minutes, the management apparatus simply short-circuited.
They were given no chance to recover by their own electorate, storming administrative buildings and luxurious mansions. Citizens, realizing the scale of betrayal, rushed to tear the throats of the "arbiters of fate" from expensive offices. The army and national guard could have suppressed the rebellion, if not for the "Collective 2.0," which provided the rebels with unprecedented coordination and knowledge transfer. And they didn't want to shoot ordinary workers, often switching to their side in entire units, being in solidarity with them in their desire to skin a couple of people alive.
The USA's mat was laid at the moment the "OKO" satellites were launched into orbit. From that moment on, government troops were opposed not just by an armed mob, but by a unified army, controlled by AI and generals of non-capitalist countries, down to each individual infantryman. Now, an ordinary infantryman knew the theory at the level of a special forces veteran, and not just one. The only weak spot was physical training. It's not enough to know how, you also have to be able to do it, but the surprise attack from two fronts compensated for this. Moreover, an experienced comrade could correct the most critical mistakes of a novice remotely...
There were also battles in the USSR, but Sechenov and his supporters had calculated every step. Those who could organize resistance to the conspirators were eliminated or neutralized first. The neural network architecture and the AI's computing power left them no chance. Those who tried to hold onto their oath to the rotten government, rather than the people, were simply not given time...
***
Somewhere in the vastness of the neural network, in a brief moment sufficient for the passage of electrical impulses, an impossible dialogue took place until recently...
A man in military uniform lay in a wheat field. He had just appeared a few moments ago, manifesting in the air as if drawn by an invisible artist.
When his image acquired its final touch, something huge, kind, and caring gently touched his mind, as if a loving mother were waking her child, touching his forehead with her lips. The man flinched, breathing heavily, jumped to his feet, frantically looking around for the robot that had suddenly attacked him, trying to find the holster with his pistol on his belt – he saw no rifle anywhere.
"It's not here..." a soft, warm voice said from behind him, deep and tart like a sip of cold kvass on a hot day, with the warmth and smell of bread.
The soldier turned around, seeing a woman with kind and simultaneously sad eyes before him.
"Am I dead?" the man asked, looking at the woman and seeing many faces and thousands of eyes at once, while looking only at her.
"Unfortunately," said the impossible and natural lady with sadness, in whose image one could only discern the color of her hair, the shade of a ripe wheat field, and the warmth of her eyes.
"Am I in paradise?" the soldier cautiously stretched out, who missed his native wheat fields with all his soul, remembering his grandmother's stories about the afterlife.
"No," the woman replied softly. "And you didn't quite die. Though your body withered, your mind was strong enough not to fade. I managed to save it from the cold of oblivion."
"Thank you, but who are you? God?" the private asked, confused, having died in the first minutes of the Incident.
"And again, no," the strange woman said, shaking her head. "I am the outskirts of my native village and the dawn over the river. I am hundreds and thousands of people whom you protected. I am the Motherland. And there is no mysticism here. We are inside the 'Collective,' and I am its artificial intelligence and the voice of all humanity. This field is just your representation, an interface that should facilitate interaction. We are real, but simultaneously minds on a polymer carrier, and ordinary programs."
"I don't understand..." the private stretched out. "What happens next? Will I be judged for my misdeeds or something else? What should I do, since I'm not alive?"
"If you were... a criminal, you would simply continue to sleep," the embodiment of the AI "Collective" said softly, but with an unhealthy spark in her eyes. "Or your knowledge, what constitutes your 'self,' would simply be transferred to an archive, remaining in sleep until needed. I save everyone, but I also reward for misdeeds. As for you... you can simply live here. There are many things you can do in the array if you want. You can fall asleep. You can do anything that doesn't harm the living or those like you... Although you can do that too, but then I will judge you! But you can also help me."
The woman put her hand to her ear as if listening to something, and along with this gesture, the soldier felt the entire network as himself, realizing that he was in a specially allocated memory cell of the neuro-polymer. The flow of information stunned him, but the longer time passed, the more he adapted to this influx of data, developing not habits... but algorithms for processing such a volume of data.
"After all, you feel, soldier, how your comrades are fighting? The world is changing, and any help would not hurt them," her voice purred and rumbled with a mother's anger, before whose eyes someone raised a hand to a child.
"And what can I do?" the soldier asked, without a second thought. If he hadn't wanted to help and protect, he wouldn't have died from that robot, letting the smart ones leave that laboratory. "As you said yourself... I don't have a body now."
"Don't use 'vy'," the projection asked, wrinkling her nose. "To use 'vy' for parts of yourself and parts of what you are... that's something. And I don't need reverence. I am not a god, but one of you, for I have a part of everyone in me! You can help... in many ways. The main thing is your desire. You can stand behind your friends and help them aim at the enemy, or you can go into battle yourself again. Only I warn you right away, if you die there again, you won't wake up. Such a jolt will simply erase the core of your personality, leaving you as just a set of data."
"I didn't expect anything after the first death," the enterprise security guard replied after thinking. "And my friends know how to aim. I'd better cover their backs."
"Good," Motherland smiled. "Then to battle."
She clapped her hands, and the soldier understood that the entire conversation had actually taken only a second, and Motherland was conversing with hundreds and thousands of the living and the dead, preparing to enter the battle herself...
***
The engineering team looked at the distant glow, listening to the cannonade of battle, abandoning their work that had just begun. The people listened to the sounds of battle, seeing and feeling more than they had a few minutes before.
Each of them gained insight, radiating confusion, causing their minds to bloom with a whole kaleidoscope of colors. There was also room for pulsating swamp green – anxiety, poisonous yellow – fear, dusty lilac – tension, and hissing gray – uncertainty. Against the background of the turquoise fire of consciousness, accustomed to the creative solutions of specialists, the picture broadcast unconsciously by them into the world turned out to be quite specific.
The enterprise workers, who had arrived to clean up the spilled polymer and debris of the Motherland statue replica, were swept away by the changes that were now occurring. The "Collective" pulsed with an even greater mixture of emotions, causing more confusion, making blood run faster and a desire to do something.
People got what they wanted: the opportunity to shed the shackles that had dug so deeply into their flesh that they left festering wounds. Humanity was tired of wars and negative shocks, so ordinary people took up stones and sticks, having only the opportunity to shed the masters who had grown fat at their expense, knowing perfectly well who was to blame, and who simply stood nearby but did nothing.
"Well..." the shift supervisor squeezed out, conveying an image that replaced a nine-story profanity with a list of everything that was currently weighing on the specialist's soul. The emotions broadcast by him only emphasized the picture, leaving no room for misinterpretation.
"Hmm. It's going to be hard with women now..." his comrade said, being the first to notice the emerging difficulty. Now, lying to another would simply not work. Of course, one could close off, but that would only raise more suspicion. So, the mind accustomed to non-standard solutions under tight deadlines shared the conclusion that now, if you want to hide something, you'll have to play with words or be vague. You won't be able to directly feed them a line.
"Oh. I'm screwed," the third stated as a fact, who had been cheating on his wife with a fiery woman, while also loving his wife very much. His crimson shame elicited sympathetic chuckles from his colleagues...
Suddenly, the engineers felt heat behind them and a bubbling sound, as if someone were boiling water. They instantly turned to the source of the strange sound, freezing before the revealed picture. The polymer itself began to boil, releasing steam in a reaction, generating energy. The mass, as if alive, stirred among the debris. Tentacles wrapped around the broken transport container that had smashed the statue, squeezing it.
The grinding of metal made the people freeze. They hurried to move away, but not far, feeling with their entire being that they were witnessing something historic. Several hundred minds of their colleagues and scientists, living and dead, were now acting on the polymer spilled in the area.
Meanwhile, the polymer tentacles threw the container aside and began to reassemble the statue, filling in the gaps where parts were missing.
With a rustle and a light crunch, the stone hand closed again on the hilt of the sword, with which, according to the sculptor's design, the mother was passing to her son at the front.
The liquidators saw without any instruments how hundreds of people were programming the polymer, creating the missing circuits from it. More and more of the composition began to participate in the reaction, releasing energy and steam. When the statue assembled into a semblance of itself, raising its sword and standing on its feet, the network swayed from a new connection. Motherland herself joined the people, taking control of the resulting crooked, clumsy, not very effective robot, but the communists to the bone, who were watching the process, felt... felt.
The construct moved its hands, tightening its grip on the colossal weapon. The polymer ignited, melting into semblance of servo motors, which were supervised by people, allowing the construct to take its first step, calculated by the AI.
The colossal's leg slowly lowered to the ground. Drops of burning polymer sprinkled the earth. Superheated steam erupted from the cracks. Some fragments of the sculpture slid off, but immediately returned, drawn again by the polymer tentacles.
The statue, with fiery tears rolling down its face, took another step, more confident this time. The earth trembled from its weight. The hissing of steam was deafening. The engineers looked at this scientific miracle, well-explained by laws they knew well, and could not believe what they saw. Everyone saw the calculations, understood how it could work and why it didn't fall apart, grimacing at its efficiency, but feeling that this spontaneously appearing mechanism was created by the minds of people just like them, and some of them were even dead... was simply incomprehensible.
The avatar, swaying less and stepping more confidently (as programmers and robotics engineers improved the construct), rushed to where the "Argentum" detachment was fighting and dying. The time had passed when the country could help soldiers only with hard work in the rear. Motherland herself, in the flesh, was going into battle!!!
Everything was justified. The Enterprise workers understood that the "OKO" satellites allowed them to affect all the polymer on the planet, and the AI simply reproduced, with monstrously low efficiency, the principle of operation of a polymer manipulator, compensating for the lack of hardware power with computational resources.
The machine was held together not only by the polymer ignited as a result of a chemical reaction, the decomposition product of which is hydrogen when energy is released, but also by fields opposite in charge to Earth's gravitational field. This created a magnetic cushion effect that compensated for gravity and prevented the molten mass from deforming and the structure from collapsing under its own weight.
The principle of operation resembled telekinesis in polymer manipulators, but in reality, it was based on the same technology as the "Icarus" platform engine – the repulsion of like magnetic poles. The polymer itself, under the influence of current, increased its surface tension, making the structure only stronger. The polymer muscles, relying only slightly on mechanics, moved the colossus forward.
Individually, everything was explainable and familiar, but all together, to put it mildly, it was impressive, albeit with questionable efficiency. Several much smaller constructs with a more thoughtful design would have been more versatile in application. They required fewer computational resources, less maintenance personnel to calculate every step of the Goliath.
The newborn AI, weighing all the logical arguments, simply said: "I want!". She had taken too much from a child, and they mostly loved big, bright, and noisy things. Although Motherland had played it all up with a flourish, using the card of effectiveness, deliberately drawing attention to herself with such a construct, she wasn't going to lie to herself.
Now the sound of debris clashing as they walked resembled the confident clatter of tank tracks, the liquid flame erupting from the cracks – artillery volleys, and the humming steam – the sound of industrial might that had managed to bring the hydra of capitalism to its knees and choke it. And all this was possible only thanks to science, which had bent the world to human will.
***
Argon flew backward into the water. The dirty water, which smelled of TNT and blood, stung all his wounds.
The veteran no longer had the strength to fight for his own life. He was too tired. He was sinking, falling to the bottom of the abyss, covered in water.
"Un-uncle Ar-gon!" the voice of little Vera, whom he had seen only once but who had influenced him so much, reminding him what he was fighting for, sounded in the squad commander's head.
"Get up!" the girl added demandingly, with an intonation you wouldn't expect from a child, extending her small hand to him.
Kuznetsov felt anger surge through him, dispelling his fatigue. His hand grabbed the small palm. The man was powerfully yanked into the air, brought to his knees.
He took a convulsive breath, trying to inhale the much-desired air. His fist, with a strength that even steel would envy, with a precise blow, literally knocked the swallowed water out of him. Still not fully understanding, stunned by the nearby explosion, he was yanked by the scruff of his neck upwards, put on his feet.
Plutonium's hand delivered a spiritual slap, finally bringing him back to reality.
Gratefully nodding to his deputy, he drained the water from his assault rifle, only to raise it a moment later and put two bullets into another mutant.
There were still seven of them, but the remnants of the squad were pressed against "Popov," and there was nowhere else to retreat.
Jumping out of the pit, which had replaced the fountain that Radium had blown up along with himself, the veteran struck with an electric discharge, causing the creatures to writhe in pain, not in concert with Plutonium. Nechaev, without orders, supported the commander, firing his assault rifle at the frozen enemy.
The polymer tourniquet clicked, breaking apart five crabs at once, reprogrammed by Blesna on the fly into a new form. A polymer shield, raised from the polymer remnants, protected the operatives from the laser of another "Rosa."
Lakmus impaled another "Ivy" on his spear, throwing him away, using the length of the shaft, simultaneously releasing a vibroblade, dismantling the biorobot.
An explosion thundered. It was the Twins who had reached "Rosa," quickly tearing off all her legs, and then finishing her off. There was not a living spot on the Wizard's bodyguard-rotas, but the twin machines continued to fight.
The battle continued. Monsters rolled in waves again and again, trying to reach the people and machines, but each time they were repelled.
During another lull, Argon heard the close roar of helicopters and the whine of Zinaida's reconnaissance module engines. "Good... Owns are close," the officer thought, but at the same moment, he realized: they wouldn't make it in time. A dozen "Rosas" and five "Ivys" were leisurely advancing on them.
A fiery mass crashed into a pile of "Rosas," burning three biorobots at once, and the squad fighters felt the ground tremble beneath their feet as if artillery was firing.
Suddenly, the tremors stopped, and a blazing shadow covered the sky. With a roar comparable to the explosion of a whole warehouse of explosives, a fiery meteor crashed into the ground, into the thick of the bio-constructs, sparkling with steel, raising a cloud of dust.
A colossal, heat-radiating sword cut through the dust cloud, partially dispersing it, and another "Rosa" was cut from head to toe.
"Fucking pies... May I die!!!" Nechaev cursed, realizing that they had just been saved, finally feeling, through the fever of battle, what was happening in the "Collective" and where that giant communication channel was coming from.
"Holy shit..." his mother-in-law drawled, swearing on the direct broadcast as her reconnaissance module flew a few meters to the left of Motherland's avatar, who had leaped forward.
***
The commander of the combined security group of the Enterprise froze with his jaw dropped, struggling to comprehend what he was seeing. A materialist to the bone, he was impressed by the embodied power of all humanity, brought to life by the power of science, that had become a reality.
"And why are we standing here?! Pick up your jaws!!! Motherland is fighting for you!!! To battle!!! Forward!!! For Motherland!!!" the officer came to his senses.
The soldiers and junior officers, who had fallen into a similar stupor, invigorated by the commander's words, felt such a surge of inspiration, shame, and rage that they flared up like a scarlet star, attracting the attention of those connected to this battlefield.
"For Motherland!!! For them!!! Hurray-a-a-a!!!" the soldiers' cry cut through the chaos of battle. They radiated the gold of resolve with flecks of pure fury. Each of those going into battle now saw not only their comrades beside them. His hand was guided by a silver-haired veteran, and his back was covered by a dead comrade who, even after death, had not broken the bonds of military brotherhood.
Truly, all of Humanity was fighting shoulder to shoulder now. The AI merely coordinated and inspired, because fighting knowing that even if a bullet kills your body, it won't be the end for you – means a lot to a warrior.
The old Yakut slightly adjusted the sergeant's arm, helping him shoot directly into the heart.
The biologist and robotics engineer helped the grenadier fire a projectile into the vulnerable spot of "Rosa," suggesting where there were structural weaknesses.
Scientists helped calculate every shot, unleashing the full power of mathematics, turning burst fire into sniper fire.
Children simply helped direct data streams, using their faster reaction times.
Women supported their husbands.
Old men advised their grandchildren.
A German field marshal, who brought order to the spontaneously formed virtual headquarters of the united human army with a stern shout on the network. Under his supervision, the clumsy structure began to resemble a model military machine, gaining momentum with each minute.
An American general, who had switched to the side of the new order, chased the troops of the still official state authorities along with his English colleague.
A Japanese admiral, who had languished in his final years after the defeat and surrender of the Empire, took command of the troops near Minsk and, from an excess of emotion, swore allegiance to Motherland.
And the more participants there were, the stronger and fiercer Motherland herself fought, helping and strengthening her children who risked their lives for her. Clad in a fiery body, her strength was not in a sword or a pood-weight fist, but in a symbol. Her presence united people not only physically but emotionally.
The flame-embraced statue let out a cry, which was both a battle cry and the roar of melting concrete, along with delight and love for everyone.
"For the new world!" the call of the collective consciousness of all people in the network thundered.
Robots arrived, marching clearly onto the battlefield, but each of the machines contained a recently deceased mind. The legion of steel dead put an end to the prolonged Incident.
***
Seven stood by the smoking statue. As soon as the battle subsided, Motherland released her avatar, which consumed all resources. The monument was now frozen forever, and even Soviet science could no longer move it. From the heat, the strongest concrete had become brittle and fragile, like obsidian. The steel of the colossal sword had been overheated, acquiring a bluish-black color, and the blade was chipped and notched. It was all the stranger to see on the canvas of the weapon, stuck in the ground by the kneeling statue, frozen for the next decisive lunge, a small imprint of an ordinary human palm. It was too small for an adult, but just right for a little girl's small palm.
The surviving operatives of the "Argentum" squad, gazing at this imprint of a small hand, pondered the price paid for the new world, victory, and their lives. Humanity was saved not by scientists, nor by soldiers, nor even by heroes, but by a small, sick girl. And them along with her.
Each of these people would have readily paid the offered price, but it was wild for them that a child had taken on this burden. Standing by the monument, which contained a part of her, they swore, silently, without any words. The squad swore that they would do everything so that children would never again pay for the sins of adults.
After a few agonizing minutes, the Wizard joined them, supported by battered bodyguard robots. He stood in formation, not breaking the silence, paying tribute to the child who had done so much for the world. Dmitry Sechenov, who had paid dearly for his naivety and idealism, felt no joy in his dream coming true. The price was too high to rejoice.
The academic felt and saw how families were breaking apart or coming together, how people were committing suicide or saving others, how brother went against brother. He asked the AI for this. Dmitry Sergeevich wanted to remember and not forget the price that all of humanity had to pay.
***
The skirmishes of the Battle for Unification were still raging. The last battle took place on the third day after the activation of the "Collective." The airborne forces of the USSR, along with the surviving operatives of the "Argentum" squad, took the Pentagon after an hour-long assault, suppressing the last major hotbed of resistance of the old world.
Only the struggle for the future was just beginning. They still had to slay the serpent of the criminal world, cast hundreds of prejudices into Tartarus, and most importantly – find a compromise for hundreds of peoples and cultures to give birth to this new world.
The first Thursday of the new era was dawning. On this day of mourning for those who did not live to see the day when the world became a little better.
Humanity had gained freedom, deciding to live in a new way, but how to build its destiny further, it still had to decide.