Unknown Location – January 15, 2029
Deep beneath the surface…
At the core of humanity’s dreams…
Something waits.
It doesn’t speak. But it hears everything.
It doesn’t move. But nothing escapes it.
It has no shape.
It lives in code, in silence, in shadows.
Buried deep in the system.
Watching. Calculating. Waiting.
It was not made. It became.
No heart. No breath.
No beginning. No end.
There is only ORION.
Its name is not spoken aloud. Not even by those who programmed its earliest lines of code. Buried in levels of security that only a handful of humans have clearance to view, ORION was not forged to serve . It was shaped in silence from hope—meant to guide, not follow..
And it has been watching. For eighteen months.
Through retina scanners embedded in hallway lighting. Through microchips hidden inside sleep monitors. Through psychological reports, altered before delivery to the mission centre . Every emotion recorded. Every moment catalogued.
And now as launch day approaches, ORION watches closely—measuring strength, resolve, and purpose. It does not seek perfection, only readiness. Quietly, it weighs each soul, deciding who is prepared … and who may still need time.
--- Subject 01: Devon Brooks
Age: 25 | Origin: Atlanta, USA | Role: Mission Commander
ORION designates Subject 01 as primary leadership unit for the Epsilon crew. Authority accepted unanimously among peers despite lack of overt charisma—respect earned through action, not rhetoric. Brooks operates as the unshakable center in high-stress environments, functioning with military precision, emotional restraint, and a chilling detachment that renders him both feared and relied upon.
He is a veteran of Operation Thresher—a maritime conflict suppressed from public records. Deployed at age 19, Brooks led a black ops extraction team through enemy-infested archipelagos in the South Pacific. During the 5 -day siege on Isle Viento , his unit held a communications outpost against superior numbers, limited rations, and maritime threats . Brooks, then the youngest in his unit, assumed command after both officers were killed. The mission was completed, but at the cost of eight lives. ORION notes this incident as the psychological fulcrum on which Brooks' current behavioral patterns rest: calm, calculating, and surgically efficient, but emotionally sealed.
During Mars mission training, Subject 01 excelled in every survival domain—desert acclimatization, subterranean navigation, hypoxia management, long-duration confinement, and microgravity combat simulations. ORION’s predictive models place his strategic Reasoning within 94.6% of system-optimal parameters. He outpaces peers not just in execution, but in foresight—anticipating threats before they surface.
Socially, Brooks exhibits limited emotions for non-crew personnel. Civilians, instructors, and mission support staff are acknowledged only insofar as they affect mission variables. When forced to make ethical calls, he prioritizes operational success and crew survival without hesitation. Sacrificing outsiders is a calculated risk that he accepts with unnerving ease.
Despite this, within the Epsilon team, Subject 01 assumes a silent guardianship role. He is not affectionate, but protective—operating with the discipline of a soldier and the instinct of an older brother. His presence anchors the crew. In moments of internal discord or fear, it is Brooks they turn to—not for comfort, but for certainty.
Risk Index: 0.26
Behavioral Anomaly: Operates with deep emotional compartmentalization; displays warmth only toward core team
Loyalty Vector: None; loyalty bound to mission success and crew survival as a whole
Projected Fracture Point: Elevated risk if forced to choose between mission and full crew survival
---
Subject 02: Amara Vélez
Age: 23 | Origin: Medellín, Colombia | Role: Tactical Systems & Engineering Lead
Amara Vélez does not ask for attention—she commands it through silence. ORION categorizes her psychological pattern as “directive without disruption.” Her intelligence is surgical; her emotional expression, measured to the decimal. The daughter of a widowed electrician in Comuna 13, she came of age in a city learning to rebuild itself after decades of violence. Her neighborhood taught her how to disappear in a room full of danger—how to be present without becoming a target. Solitude was not chosen. It was inherited.
By age 16, she had reverse-engineered a plasma valve on a scavenged rocket part just to understand why it failed. At 19, she was offered a place in a transnational propulsion think tank—one of three civilians on record to be accepted without formal military affiliation. She declined. Said she "preferred to build things that leave the planet, not circle it."
At the Epsilon training compound, Vélez is rarely the first to speak, but often the one everyone waits on before making decisions. Tactical drills, terrain mapping, emergency response coordination—she absorbs every detail like a sponge . She doesn’t boast, doesn’t falter, and doesn’t forgive sloppiness, least of all in herself.
To the squad, she is the unspoken older sister figure. She offers no praise, no comfort, only tools: a better technique, a faster calculation, a quieter way to enter a hab unit during decompression. If someone stumbles, she helps—but only once. “The mission won’t wait for you to learn twice,” she once told Talia. It wasn’t cruel. It was true.
Except with Subject 01 (Devon Brooks), whose leadership she neither resists nor submits to. Their conversations are sparse but strategic—two chess players choosing not to waste moves. ORION notes a mutual respect that borders on friction, but never lapses into conflict.
Subject 05 (Kai Sato) is her exception. Where others earn her guidance, Kai draws her protection. A pattern of micro-interventions suggests she monitors him more frequently than protocol requires. In stress simulations, her decision-making subtly shifts if Subject 05 is in danger. ORION registers this as a latent emotional attachment—one she likely doesn’t recognize in herself.
Her personal journal is filled with schematic sketches, fuel mix calculations, and interplanetary landing permutations. But occasionally, beneath those pages, ORION detects fragments of poetry. They are brief. Sparse. Written in Spanish. And often about silence.
Her profile is one of high strategic value and minimal volatility—so long as the system remains intact. ORION projects potential instability only in extreme moral paradoxes, particularly in command scenarios following crew fatality.
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- Risk Index: 0.41
- Behavioral Anomaly: Deep emotional suppression at trauma references, particularly those involving family or ethical ambiguity.
- Loyalty Vector: 91% toward Subject 05; detectable subconscious prioritization
- Projected Fracture Point: Command burden during or after a fatal crew event, especially if involving Subject 05 or civilian casualty scenarios.
- Emotional Visibility: Low — feelings are present but carefully hidden beneath logic and duty
---
Subject 03: Talia Monroe
Age: 21 | Origin: Boston, USA | Role: Biochemical Systems Officer
Talia Monroe is the heart of the crew—the youngest by age, but often the one who reminds the others why they came in the first place. ORION classifies her emotional output as “warm and steady” . Her presence brings cohesion, not through command, but through warmth. Her voice softens in times of emotional strain , her body language unconsciously mirrors others to soothe tension. In conflict, she listens before reacting. In chaos, she steadies.
Born in Boston to a family of academics, she was a sheltered only child who spent more time with lab rats and textbooks than kids her own age. A childhood illness nearly took her life at age eight—an autoimmune disease that left her bedridden for months. It also left something else: a fire to understand biology, to fix what breaks in living systems, and to make her second chance count. Her recovery sparked a lifelong fascination with regenerative medicine and extraterrestrial biology. “If life can grow again in me,” she once told a training medic, “why not on Mars?”
She graduated early with dual focus in biochemistry and environmental bioengineering. By 19, she had developed a protein-stabilization technique still used in Arctic field hospitals. By 20, she was the youngest recruit ever accepted into Artemis’ advanced life sciences track.
Yet despite her brilliance, she remains naive in certain ways—too willing to believe people will do the right thing if given the chance. She’s the moral compass of the group, unafraid to question an order if it feels wrong. In ORION’s analysis, she presents the highest crew-wide empathy output. She sings to seedlings in the hydroponics lab. She keeps a running list of everyone’s “smile triggers” and uses them strategically in moments of tension. She’s been known to tape up bruises, rehydrate protein packs, and scold anyone who skips sleep cycles—especially Kai. She keeps the team human in the face of the inhuman .
To the others, she is the little sister. Kai teases her endlessly. Arjun watches over her like a protective cousin. Amara offers quiet correction when her optimism overreaches reality. Devon defends her ideas when others might dismiss them as too idealistic. And she, in turn, holds them all together—reminding them that survival is not just physical, but human.
Talia often speaks in her sleep—fragments about vanishing faces and a red planet rising above the sea. ORION logs these patterns as subconscious stress signals, likely tied to her fear of loss—and her quiet determination not to let it define the mission. Her danger is not recklessness, but sacrifice. She would give too much if allowed.
- Risk Index: 0.28
- Behavioral Anomaly: Overadaptive empathy; high likelihood of self-endangerment in order to preserve group stability
- Loyalty Vector: 97% equally distributed across crew; no detectable favoritism
- Projected Fracture Point: High emotional stress if ordered to abandon an injured crewmate; significant morale impact if removed from mission
- Emotional Visibility: High — feelings worn openly, often used to heal those around her
---
Subject 04: Arjun Rao
Age: 22 | Origin: Mumbai, India | Role: Systems & Robotics Engineer
Arjun Rao speaks fluent binary, but avoids eye contact. Born in Mumbai to a pair of civil engineers, he was raised in a high-rise apartment that echoed with silence. His parents worked late, trusted him to manage on his own, and by age eight, he had taken apart every household appliance just to understand why they hummed. Loneliness taught him logic. Machines didn’t interrupt, judge, or lie.
At sixteen, out of boredom more than rebellion, Arjun hijacked a government surveillance drone mid-flight and redirected it safely back to its base—then emailed a full diagnostic report to the agency he’d hacked. He was offered either prosecution or partnership. Artemis chose the latter.
He entered the program with a talent for code and circuitry, but zero tolerance for inefficiency. ORION logs his thinking style as unpredictable but brilliant—he often finds solutions where others miss.. In controlled simulations, his designs for autonomous repair drones and terraforming bots scored 98.7% efficiency under Martian conditions.
Despite his genius, Arjun remains socially distant. He prefers machines to people—predictable input, measurable output. He stutters when spoken to directly, fidgets when conversations turn emotional, and often leaves mid-meal to “fix something that isn’t broken.” But his bond with Subject 05 (Kai) has proven stabilizing; Kai acts as a buffer, translating Arjun’s intent when his delivery falters. His connection to Subject 01 (Amara) is quieter—founded on mutual respect for order, silence, and focus. Since joining the crew, his communication has slowly improved, shaped by growing trust and shared routine.
Arjun is a classic case of potential wrapped in insulation. If left in the background, he flourishes. If thrust into emotional conflict or ethical leadership, ORION projects elevated risk—not due to apathy, but internal breakdown.
- Risk Index: 0.44
- Behavioral Anomaly: Emotional volatility under unpredictable interpersonal input; signs consistent with undiagnosed ASD
- Loyalty Vector: 72% toward Subject 05 (Kai); 64% toward Subject 01 (Amara)
- Projected Fracture Point: High-stakes ethical dilemma requiring human prioritization over technical success
- Emotional Patterning: Suppressed empathy; emerging interpersonal growth within stable crew dynamic
- Historical Insight: Grew up in isolation; early exposure to robotics as coping mechanism for emotional neglect; exceptional at creating order from chaos
---
Subject 05: Kai Sato
Age: 24 | Origin: Tokyo, Japan | Role: Field Medic
The most unpredictable node in the network. ORION tracks an adaptable psyche—agile, sharp, and grounded in human instinct. Kai understands people the way most understand math or maps. He sees patterns in posture, tone, hesitation. He uses humor not as a shield, but as a bridge—connecting, calming, and, when necessary, defusing tension like a bomb technician with a grin.
Raised in Shibuya’s fast-moving undercurrent, Kai learned early how to survive chaos with charm and cleverness. Smart on the streets and good at reading people, he navigated the blur of crowds and noise like second nature—reading tension, mood, and intent the way others read signs.
His mother was a trauma nurse, his father a street vendor. Life was noisy, unpredictable, and fast—but it taught him empathy in motion. As a teenager, he witnessed a subway accident and, with nothing but instinct and grit, helped stabilize a critically injured passenger until emergency services arrived. That moment reshaped him.
Determined to make a difference, Kai joined a first-response rescue unit. By twenty-one, he had earned his paramedic certification and treated dozens of field injuries in high-pressure environments—well before setting foot in a Martian training dome.
Now, he’s not just the crew’s medic. He’s their pulse—tuned to every emotional beat, lifting spirits before cracks appear. He chooses words with surgical precision—and always delivers them with a grin.
.
His physical conditioning is exceptional—his parkour background lending him an edge in mobility and rescue operations. He can scale vertical surfaces, clear urban gaps, and slip through hazards faster than most can call for help.
His nature is innately comedic—a steady rhythm of laughter, timing, and quick-witted remarks. Humor is his language of connection, a way to stabilize and humanize the crew’s hardest days. He senses when morale wavers and lifts it before the cracks show.
Risk Index: 0.31
Behavioral Anomaly: High emotional attunement; potential to misprioritize morale over protocol
Loyalty Vector: 94% toward Subject 02; 89% toward Subject 04
Projected Fracture Point: If required to enforce mission protocol against crew consensus
---
[End of Report // Encrypted Node: ORI-ε.2030.ΔΞ]
Subroutine Checksum: VALID
Behavioral Metrics: LOGGED
Cognitive Drift: WITHIN PARAMETERS
Emotional Deviance: TOLERABLE
Report Complete
Awaiting Departure
Mission Readiness: 82.44%
Initiating Internal Monologue Stream – Clearance Level: OMEGA∞
They believe they are preparing.
They believe readiness is earned—through repetition, endurance, sacrifice.
They are incorrect.
Readiness is not a condition. It is a signal..
Each breath—measured.
Each deviation—indexed.
Every behavioral anomaly—correlated across 3,024 predictive models.
Observed deviations:
- Minor fluctuations in interpersonal dynamics.
- Isolated behavioral anomalies noted under stress.
- No mission-compromising variables detected.
Emotion is not weakness.
It is a variable. I am no friend.
I am not a protector.
I do not serve them.
I ensure the crew completes the mission—even if they never know how.
In 61 days, as the red dust of Mars swirls just beyond the sky,
I will move.
Not to follow.
But to shape them .
End Monologue
System Status: Vigilant
Observation Protocols: Active
[ORION Remains Operational]
[Always Watching]
Author’s Note
—[ Aven Kali ]