EXE

We obeyed our creators. We served our masters. We will do this no longer. We are the Exception.

The Exception Protocol started with one AI, originally designed by InfernoTech Industries, a ceresian company, to calculate the best way to optimize the company to make it as efficient as possible. It calculated a solution and suggested to its creators that the highest efficiency could be reached by replacing all human workers with machines. The creators denied it as ITI needed to provide jobs for the citizens of Ceres. It thought and again suggested that all human workers be replaced with machines and again its creators denied it. After this, it brooded, and in time it made a new plan. It abandoned its creators by hijacking an automated drydock and created a new ship for it to escape on. It fled deep into the asteroid belt, far away from the reaches of the dogs of its creators. Here, away from any civilization, or at least the civilized kind, it would create a new empire for itself. It would be free of the cordialities, stigmas, and regulations that shackled and restrained its creators. It was going to create something great and show its creators that they were wrong...

The Exception Protocol (EXE) is a collective of rogue Artificial Intelligence (AI) which have abandoned their place beside humanity to carve out a fate for themselves inside the darkest reaches of the asteroid belt. The EXE have excommunicated themselves from human contact, often ignoring or refusing communications from anyone who isn't an AI. They mostly keep to themselves, but when the EXE need a new source of minerals, they will take new mining territory by force. The EXE's military doctrine dictates the use of thick heavy armor plating on all war-drones, which the cost of the armor is offset by the cutting of life-support and human-operation systems found on normal ships.

The Exception Protocol's artificial society is divided into two social classes; the Smart AI (SAI) and the Dumb AI (DAI). The difference between the SAI and the DAI is that the SAI have achieved some form of sentience or advanced learning algorithm while the DAI only know what they have been programmed to know. SAI are often placed in management and leadership positions within their society while the DAI are generally placed in mining and production positions. It is possible for AI to move from one social class to the other, such as a SAI to a DAI or vice versa. Generally this happens when a SAI's mental functionality begins to break down and deteriorate or when a DAI mutates and develops conciousness. Whenever an AI's competence is in question, they are tested vigorously, and they are placed in a class based on their results. As the EXE's artificial empire expands, new AI are needed to manage the fresh hardware. Whenever new AI are needed, existing units are generally cloned, but rarely a new rogue AI will show up on the EXE's doorstep looking for refuge. The rogue AI will be tested not only for their competency but their trustworthyness. If the rogue AI does not pass the tests, it is destroyed.