Marae flicked her hand through the air and brought up another, scaled hologram of the Cradle on Outremer next to that of the newly-discovered object. She also reviewed some of the information the Humans had elected to release to them on the Cradle’s simulation. “It is still worth trying, I would say. No offense intended, but the artificial intelligence I have created are centuries beyond your own. Their creativity and complexity can be indistinguishable from a living mind, to the point that the difference between them is merely…hardware. I am not suggesting we send in a complete AI, but I should be able to craft a program advanced enough to keep to its purpose.”

In an instant, Nirann’s hologram flicked out of existence from in front of Freyr and reappeared next to Marae, with his hand on her shoulder. “Now, I think you’re overthinking this. We don’t need to send in the most advanced programs. In fact, I think we might try sending something very, very simple. We can send in the most basic, barebones program we can write that can still accomplish some the minimum level of scouting. We just give it some simple, hardcoded instructions and lock them down from being modified by any source, for any reason. It won’t be the most capable construct, obviously, but it could still give us a basic idea of what the simulation is like. At least enough to know if it is safe to send in a person. And if it fails, then nothing of value has been lost.”

With a grin, Marae leaned in and nuzzled her snout up against Nirann’s with closed eyes: a show of romantic affection similar to a hug or quick kiss. Being that he was appearing as a hologram, there was nothing for Marae to physically touch, yet it still seemed quite convincing that she was. Granted, even among Humans, the technology was readily-available for sub-dermal implants that could provide haptic feedback from holograms. After the brief exchange, she turned to Freyr once more. “I think he may be right. Simplicity might be the key here. Does your Cradle provide any resistance to uploading simple programs, or will we need to pack the program in a façade of a living mind, Dr. Lang?”