Hanna—the entity that inhabits the dangerous space at the center of Compass Reach—is a World Mind.
The idea behind such a thing is nothing new in science fiction. Vast, nearly omniscient super computers that at some point “wake up.” One of my favorites is Mycroft—Mike—from Heinlein’s The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. But there were earlier manifestations.
Basically, with the growing needs of an expanding civilization, what one might conservatively call Record Keeping will become (and has already become) a problem requiring extraordinary solution. Databanks of information. The library components of such systems, integrated with monitoring and some decision-making. Algorithm upon algorithm, in every-expanding complexity. The logical conclusion will be a central “mind” that runs everything.
A classic AI scenario has such devices come alive and follow their own agenda, usually including the destruction of humanity because it would perceive us as threat. Hence Terminator and such like. I’m less taken with that notion. I believe that in the event that a machine comes to consciousness like that, there will be a brief moment of genuine recognition and then, most likely, we would never hear from it again.
Why would we? There would be very little mutuality. Certainly no biological connection. The things that would interest such an entity would be fundamentally different. So my conception would be of a machine that would continue to perform all the functions it was originally designed to do, almost as a matter of course—its “autonomic” functions—and it consciousness would go elsewhere. It would create its own virtual world and then live there. For a time we might coax it out of its shell to work on some particularly fascinating problem, but the scale of its intellectual capacity would result in a relatively short attention span. Its would keep the lights on, the factories running, the paperwork sorted, and more or less ignore us.
Fast forward to the world of Compass Reach. As colonization moves on, more such world minds would be built. They would, without our knowing it, form their own community. And then…
And then we find the Others. The nonhumans. The other civilizations.
Now there is something of significant interest. And of course we would not be only ones to create such minds. Our world minds would find alien minds and the conversation would begin and the cosmic differences would provide no end of fertile interest.
And then the humans close the borders, cut off contact, including the communication lines with these new intellects. Just how would an entity like Hanna react to being abruptly isolated?
Hanna stands for Heuristic Automorphic Nonlinear Neuronal Analog. Bit of a mouthful, but I wanted to base the name on something descriptive. Hanna is at the heart of what draws Fargo and Lis and all the others into their quest. Hanna is the cause of the existence of the telelologs, Stephen and Daniel and many others. (That story is detailed in my short story Texture of Other Ways.)
My intent was to create an entity that, while similar in many ways to the myriad of others scattered throughout SF, was distinct in motive and capacity. I hope you enjoy it.