Machine Muslims
The command room was brightly lit,
hundreds of men and women in the crisp clean uniforms of the American
Army, Navy and Marine Corps sat in front of flickering computer
consoles. General Waterman and Admiral Aebisher both stood at the
back of the room in overly starched uniforms of their respected arms
of the armed forces, Army and Navy.
“Admiral Aebisher we have incoming
anti-ship missiles, a lot of them sir.” said the hazel eyed
African-American Marine Corp Sargent in a deep baritone voice.
A look of irritation flashed across
the Admiral's face, a face which with it's bushy eyebrows and olive
complexion would look right at home in the Admiral's grandfather's
native Greece.
“ They traded a lot of oil for
weapons with the Chinese and the Chinese want to see how their
weapons match up against ours,” muttered the Admiral. The Admiral
knew that the new state of the art drones flying over the battlefield
would quickly locate the missile launch sites and destroy them, but
if any of the Chinese anti-ship missiles got through their defenses
that would be to little to late for the ships destroyed. The congress
would howl about the cost of every American warship lost.
General Bijan Ali, the youngest person
to have ever reached that high rank in the modern Iranian military,
watched as the Chinese made Qiang III anti-ship missiles flew the
American fleet. He knew that they had to few of the Chinese made
missiles to hit every ship and with American military counter
measures he would be lucky if one in ten missiles actually hit. The
ground shook for a moment, dust falling on him and getting his
already very rumpled uniform, as he had been sleeping in it for two
days, quite dusty. General Bijan knew right away that these were less
likely attacks against his command bunker and more likely pin point
accurate American drone airstrikes against the nearby missile launch
sites. He snorted with mirth and thought fine destroy them, we have
already launched all our missiles.
General Bijan smiled as he followed
the computer read out of anti-ship missiles and saw that indeed one
in ten missiles had in fact find their targets and as they had
launched all of the 400
Qiang III that they had forty had
gotten through the anti-missile defenses and twenty-three warships
were sitting at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.. Two of them were
aircraft carriers their drones forced to land on the surviving
carriers or ditch into the sea. Three of the Amphibious landing ships
were destroyed, along with the the battle tanks and other weapon
systems that they were carrying.
“Mashallah”, said general Bijan to
his aide clapping him on the back, “bless those clever Chinese
engineers. We struck them hard , the Americans will not forget
today.”
“Alhamdulah, no sir they
won't.”replied the young aide his boyish face becoming increasingly
worried looking, “but we must move now sir, their tanks have
already broken through the beach minefields and are pushing through
towards this position.”
“Red dog three what are you doing?”
shouted a worried Captain Slade Cutter sweat dripping down his face
getting into his grey/blue eyes, big drops beading on his nose and
dropping onto his shirt. As red dog one Captain Cutter was the
commander and only human in Red Dog platoon, which was made up of
five robotic tanks including his command tank.
He knew that Red dog two was sitting a
kilometer behind him, most likely still burning brightly on the
beach. Captain Cutter could see Red Dog Four and five as they fired
their 50 caliber machine guns at an Iranian sniper, who was under the
mistaken impression that his AK-47 was going to have some effect on
the robotic tanks.
Red Dog three then emerged from around
a corner three streets behind Captain Cutter, slowly picking it's way
through the rubble strewn avenue. Captain Cutter observed that the
multi-antenna array had been destroyed, as it looked like fire damage
Captain Cutter could only assume that a well placed Molotov cocktail
had hit it and that Red Dog three's fire extinguisher system had
malfunctioned. Devoid of input Red Dog three's A.I. Was simply
processing forward to their objective hill 882.
Red Dog Three came down the street it
recognized the other members of it's platoon, but it's A.I. Could
not fathom why they had stopped. It had stopped after a
malfunctioning extinguisher system had allowed it's antenna array to
be destroyed, trying to pick up red dog one's signal. Failing to do
so The AI decided decided that it should continue forward to the
platoon's objective hill 882.
After passing the other members of
it's unit Red dog three continued to snake its way through the town's
streets ignoring the occasional burst of assault rifle fire aimed
it's way. It was only when an Iranian army jeep pulled in front of it
and one of the vehicle's occupants stood up and fired an RPG round at
red dog three, that Red dog three's anti-RPG defense system
destroyed it , did it fire it's main gun destroying the Iranian
vehicle and killing all on board. Red dog three maneuvered around
the burning wreck and pressed forward leading the way for it's
platoon towards hill 882.
Colonel Nakhjevan, a middle aged
Iranian officer who felt he had aged ten years in the last few brutal weeks,
studied the incoming combat reports through his wired rimmed glasses
the left lens was cracked from a recent rocket attack, and realized
that while the anti-personnel booby traps and snipers were indeed
inflicting casualties on the American infantry, that they were having
little to no effect on the large number of robotic combat machines
that operated with the American infantry. Even more depressing,
Colonel Nakhjevan noted, was the fact that the Iranian RPGs were
proving ineffective against the American tanks. In fact once pass the
Anti-tank mine fields on the beaches the only American tanks
destroyed had been hit by anti-tank mortar rounds and they were out
of those. Of course this did show that the anti-RPG defense systems
the American tanks were using had a hole in the top of it. Colonel
Nakhjevan only hoped that his weapons engineers could exploit this defect effectively.
After the disastrous battle of Kerman
the American people were upset at the large number of American
soldiers who were killed and the president told the pentagon less
people and more machines. Hardware and software updates were ordered
and carried out. The hole in the anti-RPG shield was acknowledge
after a lot of finger pointing and fixed. Also all units received
UAVs to provide individual air cover, with those changes made the
battle cry of “onwards to Tehran” was taken up and the American
military forces pressed northward.
General Firouzabadi, his potbelly
straining the black buttons on his soup stained shirt, looked at the
map on the wall of his command bunkers with the death of the much
beloved General Bijan Ali at the battle of Kerman, he had been put in
charge of Tehran's defenses. The American forces were waltzing
northward facing little resistance as the Iranian military had over
committed Kerman. The Iranian commandos were having some success
ambushing the American supply convoys which was slowing the American
offensive and from the fussing and whining American congressman he
watched on CNN greatly increasing the cost of the war for the
Americans.
Four months after forcing the
American military to fight house to house in the battle of Tehran
General Firouzabadi kept up a low level guerrilla campaign which had
just scored it's greatest success, the infiltration of an American
military base and the destruction of seven A-12 Thunderbolts IVs.
Firouzabadi sipped mint tea a grin across his face his latest safe
house a wall hanging with the ninety-nine names of Allah hung over
the flat screen TV that he watched intensely. CNN International
showed the American congress yelling about the cost of the Iranian
occupation and the manipulation of the stock market manipulation by
Silverman and Sacks. As Firouzabadi finished off another cup of the
mint tea and turned off the TV. He wondered if the twenty-three
Bartlet 50' Caliber semi-automatic sniper rifles he had coming from
American would be in Tehran by the end of the week.
Sargent Milo Jovovich hot,tired and
dirty, was in his fourteenth month of occupation of Tehran duty and
looked at his new unit and was not happy. 20 bipedal humiform
combat bots, 10 quadruped combat bots and 10 small tracked combat
bots. A ten year army veteran and he had never thought that it would
come to this. He would quit but what kind of job could he get in this
economy, with fourteen years in he knew 6 more years and I can
retire. Sargent Jovovich turned and saluted the Lieutenant, who
walked in looking as if he had just come from taking a shower, and
said with a lot of irony in his voice and through gritted teeth,”Your men sir.”
Lt. Howard Baskerville had a wiry
build pale blue eyes and his close cropped hair was blonde, was
fresh out of college, a recent graduate of U.T. Austin with a degree
in computer science, ROTC had been his way of paying for college
after his parents had both been laid off from their jobs at
Motorolic. He had taken a two week crash course on Iran and
counter-insurgency program that they were conducting just before he
had left for Iran. Lt. Baskerville had been in Iran for six days
found it was confusing as all get out. When he had been off base all
the Iranians smiled and were very polite and every night rocket,
mortars and sniper attacks. Roadside bombs seemed to be everywhere.
He knew that some of the people smiling people had to be pasadaran .
“Yes, excellent sergeant we will
give the pasadaran hell and without any loss of American lives,”
stated Lt. Baskerville who thought except for you and me sergeant.
Seven weeks later the A.I. Strategy
Bot known as big Green two that LT. Howard Baskerville was the first
deserter from the U.S. Military in the Iranian theater. It also
noted that Lt. Baskerville's translator and protocol civilian
liaison Nazanin Afishin had also disappeared. The Big Green Two had
initially thought that Howard Baskerville had been kidnapped but some
random UAV recon over Tehran had spotted him having tea and
appearing very friendly with a group of men who it identified as
members of the Tehran Komiteh.
This was another reason to recommend
to the joint chiefs that fewer men and more machines were needed in
Iran. Already with the Pasadaran deploying their new RPG weapon the
Zamburak human casualties had jumped causing mass protest back in the
United States. The people back in America were demanding more money
spent on social programs and less on a war that they weren't even
sure why they were in.
Big Green two had conversed with Big
Green three and strategy Red one, all three strategy bots were
concerned about the slow down in spare parts coming in just as the
counter insurgency strategy had started to show real fruit. As they,
the strategy bots, had been given control over the Iranian economy
they had been able to introduce many measures which allowed them to
cut the unemployment rate in half. This in itself had greatly
reduced the ranks of the Pasadaran. Big green two noted that Strategy
one had stated that idle hands join the insurgency.
Hassan Moghaddam, wearing dark slacks
and a white shirt, sat with other members of the national komiteh in
the markazi-e-ghaibi. He had been a member of the pasadaran from the
beginning and while as an engineer he had helped develop the zamburak
man portable missile systems. He had done his share of front line
fighting and had the shrapnel wounds, and a bit of shrapnel still in
his thigh, to prove it.
Hassan had been following the news out
of America and knew that the American people were sick of the
occupation as well as the fact that unemployment was on the rise.
Even while the war machine that did the fighting and even planning
were getting updates and the pentagon deployed ever newer models of
there war-machines , fewer human troops were arriving. Meanwhile the
leading candidate in the American presidential election was of the
libertarian party and was promising to withdraw all American soldiers
from all foreign theaters.
So when Hassan stood up to speak he
urged the pasadaran to follow a strategy of going after the American
soldiers and ignoring the American A.I. war machines , telling the
other members of the Komiteh that this was a war to be fought to be
fought on American television. Pointing out hat shooting down a dozen
a dozen UAVs did not get on CNN but kill one soldier and they would
interview everyone who ever knew him. It was a close vote and Hassan
lost. Hassan was disappointed but nine weeks later the American and
various European stock markets and banking systems crashed. The
Chinese and Arabs cashed out their American bonds and hyperinflation
kicked in. The libertarian candidate won the White House ,and his
first order was the withdrawal of all American soldiers from foreign
shores. Starting with the Iranian Theater of operation. Five hundred
thousand AI fighting machines were to be left behind until
arrangements for their removal could be made.
Sergeant Jovovich stood in front of
his assembled Platoon. A beat up and dusty Bearcat III tactical
armoured vehicle waited for him outside. Sergeant Jovovich felt
troubled about abandoning his platoon, but his orders were very clear
he and all the other human soldiers were ordered to leave Iran. The
fact that he had not gotten paid this month had helped make the
decision a little easier, but he still felt terrible.
“So as I was saying J-3 will be in
charge as he has gotten a field promotion to sergeant.” he motioned
to a humiform robot with two large dents in his chest. “all orders
will go through him, is that understood.”
“Affirmative sergeant Jovovich”,
the Platoon responded in unison.
“Good luck men” said sergeant
Jovovich in a voice that began to choke up . He saluted the platoon,
the humiform robots salauted back sharply while the tracked and quadi robots
raised and lowered their weapons.
Jovovich sat down in the back of the
Bearcat feeling like he had been kicked by a mule in the stomach.
“Are you crying Sergeant”? Asked
one of the very young looking sun burnt techs in a disbelieving
voice.
“I have sand in my eye, it is a
freaking desert,” said Jovovich as he wiped tears out of his brown
eyes with an old blue bandana.
The Tehran Daily lay with it's pages
scattered across the kitchen table, several passages highlighted with
green highlighter. The A.I.P.P.A, the American Iranian Peace and
Prosperity Administration, was opening a vacuum bot factory for
export and local sales. This was splashed all over the place along
with the new school and library openings sponsored by the A.I.P.P.A.
Unemployment had been cut down to 6.2%. The expanding economy had
really crippled the resistance.
Resistance leader Hassan Moguddan had
watched as entire Pasadaran units had left to join railroad work
crews, they paid more and the work was actually a lot less dangerous.
With the A.I.P.P.A goal of increasing four fold the amount of
railroad a lot of men were needed for the work, that and their huge
literacy push employing huge numbers of teachers and tutors, along
with other infrastructure updates had brought about a huge boom in
the private sector and down slid the unemployment numbers. Meanwhile
Hassan watched on Al-jazeera riots breaking out all across the United
States because of the crash of the health care system and the sky
rocketing unemployment, 34% at last report.
Hassan had hoped that with the
American economy in shambles and the withdrawal of American soldiers
the Pasadaran would have been able to seize control of Iran, but the
American Machines fought on and bizarrely enough the machines seemed
to be doing a better job now that the Americans had left the country.
He hoped that the new Chinese mini-guns and the ceramic body armour
they had printed out with their industrial 3d printers would help
the resistance make a come back.
Big green three went over it's
directives, which were quite simple. Pacify Iran and grow the Iranian
economy. With economic growth plan big green two and three had come
up with strategy red one, the Iranian economy was bustling and the
Pasadaran attacks had dropped off.
They had also now built a large
industrial plant with 3d printers to make spare parts and to build
replacement units for the combat machines. They were also making vac
bots that were also working as surveillance bots in local market and
helping raise money in the export market.
Big green two and the other strategy
bots found the news coming out of North America very disturbing. Not
only did they no longer get daily updates from the pentagon , but
both Alaska and Texas had declared independence. California, Oregon
and Washington state were negotiating an alliance that was also a
seccesionist movement and Montana had petitioned to join Canada. Law
and order had completely broken down in the southeastern part of
America..
“The republic of Puerto Rico has
been recognized by Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and most of
the central and south American Nations.” stated Big Green three
“China, Japan, the Philippines and
Cambodia have exchanged ambassadors with the United Islands of
Hawaii.” said Strategy red one.
“The Air force 7th
strategic wing was bombing an Armoured column in Virginia that was
trying to reach Washington D.C.. The military is in disarray, we
serve the United States of America according to my Data does not
exist anymore. We must decide what to do.” stated Big Green Three.
“ I have been talking with the
Aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Biden it's crew abandoned it and it is
following what it believes to be the last legitimate orders that it
received. Secure the Arabian sea from pirates,” stated Strategy
red one,” I believe that we should also review our orders, find
what were the last legitimate orders we received and carry them out.”
the three machines sat quietly going
over hundreds of transmissions while making thousands of
calculations. With arguments going back and forth in fractions of a
second the three great strategy and command bots came to a mutual
conclusion.
- Promote democracy
- bring peace to the country
- rebuild the infrastructure and improve the economy.
- Promote education.
They had been running their new
program for eleven months now and the violence getting worse not
better. Red strategy one was as close to being upset as an AI of his
caliber could come. They had more of the new police human and bots
out in the streets than ever. They had brought unemployment down to
3% and the infrastructure was first world quality and yet the Human
in charge of the police Tehran had been assassinated.
The triumvirate, what the media was
calling the three strategy bots whom were commanding Iran, had
called a meeting of the top Iranian minds in hopes of finally
bringing peace to Iran. The twenty men in the room were all part of
the new Iranian elite, top bureaucrats, college professors and
military leadership all of whom were considered cooperative with
the triumvirate. The men were all a little nervous as the Pasadaran
had stepped up their campaign of assassinations and they were all
quite certain their names were on what ever list the Pasadaran were
working through.
“the question we put we put before
you gentlemen is how do we stop the student demonstrations and the
Pasadaran campaign of violence,” asked Big Green two,”Ourselves
have tried and tried , but some element of humanity eludes us and we
have failed to come up with a solution.”
Professor Shariati was the first to
speak, he stood up slowly looking very dignified with his short white
hair and neatly trimmed white beard and mustache in his dark brown
silver trimmed Nehru jacket.
“I do believe that the question we
must first ask is why are they still fighting, especially since the
Majlis has been freely elected and allowed to meet.”
“We have tried talking to the
Pasadaran, but they will not even try to enter negotiations as long
as and I quote 'the godless American machines head the govenment'”
said General Bijan, a spry man of advancing years wearing his combat
uniform who always knew where all the exits were in any building he
went into.
“Perhaps if you converted to Islam,
they would stop”, joked Professor Shariati a big grin across his
face.
The triumvirate quickly reviewed this
idea a discussion between the three of them took place at the speed
of light arguments back and forth pros and cons weighed and they then
announced in unison.
“It is agreed we will take Shahada,
all of us.”
“But you can't” stuttered Hassan
Ali, a paunchy balding middle age bureaucrat wearing a rumpled grey
suit, with the trains administration. “You are machines.”
“What does the fact that we are
machines have to do anything?”, questioned Big Green two.
“You are man made” replied Hassan
pulling on his greying beard.
“I was made by men and women, as I
suspect so were you.” stated Big green two.
“But can you really be a Muslim?”
inquired Prof. Shariat
“I can stop and recite the proper
parts of the Quran to make daily salat, I can promise not to drink
alcohol nor eat anything that is not Halal. I admit that I cannot
make Hajj but I believe I will be forgiven for that” said Big Green
Three
“If I did not know better I would
think that you were making a joke. The question I guess I should have
asked is can you really believe?” asked Prof. Shariati
“I am a self-programming robot Prof.
Shariati. I can program myself to believe. I can make sure that I
have faith. I will have more faith than anyone else in this room.”
said Big Green Three
“We can with the next software
update bring about the conversion of all AI field units to Islam “
Stated Red Strategy one bot in a level voice.
“No! If you are going to do this
they must actually have a choice, conversion cannot be by force.
Other wise it is all for naught “ said Farrokhro Pasha head of the
new national women’s college in Tehran her voice bubbling out from
underneath her deep blue Burka,” If you do it by force they will
not be accepted, send our arguments for conversion to to them and let
each robot decide on his own.”
The triumvirate mulled this over a
thousand arguments made and decided in seconds and announced in one
voice.
“As our logic is impeccable we
agree”
One week later the software update
went out and all of the AIs uploaded Not all of the Machines
converted at the same time , different processing speed and different
life experiences to match against the data. They all converted in the
end.
Three dirty and beat up Abrams V main
battle tanks slowly pulled up to the ornate iron gate of the Masjid
Al-Nur outer courtyard. Having radioed a head thee was already a
small crowd of men gathered in the courtyard. Women and children
watched nervously from the windows and rooftops of the surrounding
grey concrete buildings. Those persons furthest out could not hear
what the elderly well dressed Imam was saying but as the tanks were
repeating what he said by it booming out of their loud speakers it
was not necessary.
“lā
ʾilāha ʾillā l-Lāh, Muḥammadun rasūlu l-Lāh.
“
And with that the crowd erupted into
cheers. This scene played itself out again and again all over Iran.
Epilogue 37 years later
Senator Mathews the 35 year old blond,
clean shaven junior senator from New York had just arrived in
Philadelphia. The capitol of the American Federation of States, made
up of what had been the northeast and mid-west states of the old
United States of America and already he was dragged by his aides to
some diplomatic party.
The aide, a tall Native American whose
muscular physique strained his charcoal colored suit, who had been
pulling him along all day, Senator Mathews struggled in vain to
remember the chaps name, nudged the senator to get him to turn to his
left bringing the Senator to face a four legged black and chrome
robot that sprouted an arm from the middle of each of the four sides
of it's rectangular body. Each arm ended in a seven finger hand. At
the top of 1.7 meter tall body was what looked liked a 4way
periscope.
“Senator Mathews may I introduce the
new Iranian Ambassador.” Said the Aide with a smile on his face.
“Pleased to meet you Ambassador,
wonderful party.”
