Daedalus Initiative / DAEINT

The Daedalus Initiative was a heuristic social experiment that began three hundred years ago and was never officially completed. Conducted by a privately funded university project of the same name, the purpose of the experiment had two goals: To study the behavioral and developmental processes of children who are stranded in space, and to record the emotional attachment that develops between the children and their unrelated adult observers. The experiment was only supposed to last five years.

Seven young girls and seven young boys aged eight to thirteen were gathered from orphanages and unfit parents to be housed aboard a massive and unfamiliar starship. To observe, five adult volunteers with varying familial backgrounds were selected from the university to join the children on their voyage. The volunteers were selected for being single, unwed, and expressing no desire to parent their own children. The starship was modified to allow the adult volunteers to observe the children in secret, from sections of the ship which were physically sealed off from the sections where the children were deposited. They were given complete control over ship’s systems to better simulate problems with the ship’s operations and ensure the safety of the vessel and the experiment overall.

Dozens of interactive exercises were preloaded into the research computers to be engaged at the volunteers’ discretion. These ranged from simple problems like how to operate doors and hatches, to more complex simulations such as firefighting, and communicating with other vessels in space. Volunteers were also encouraged to design their own exercises as the experiment proceeded, tailored to the developing personalities and group dynamics of the children. These custom exercises varied from curious to cruel. In one exercise, three volunteers created the presence of a fictional monster living somewhere on the ship. Through the use of sound, reappropriation of holographic projectors, and tactile inputs, the volunteers brought life to a monster that did not truly exist. Eventually even the older children began to believe the creature was real even though no one had truly seen it. As a result, one of the younger children was murdered by a rival who claimed the monster had done it. The volunteers were forced to end the exercise by tricking the children into thinking they had lured it into an airlock and purged it from the ship.

The children were put through many trials both frightening and stressful, and over the first year, many bonds were formed, but the group also split into several tribes. The Daeldalus Initiative’s experiment was nearly complete, and showing very interesting results. Then, amid the fourth year of the experiment, when the children’s ages now ranged from eleven to seventeen, the ship was hit with a massive burst of radiation from a nearby solar flare.

The children were able to save the ship with a creative genius only afforded by their simulated experiences together over the previous four years. However, every volunteer was killed by massive radiation exposure. The ship’s primary systems continued to function after a core reset initiated by the children. Unfortunately, propulsion, shields, and weapons, previously under the command of the volunteers, remained unresponsive. In fact the children, who until now had only been given control of simulated systems, were unaware of the ship’s true defensive capabilities. At the same time the volunteers were killed, the research mainframe and AI were also fried. This effectively wiped all traces of the false systems. The children knew they were stranded, but had no idea that the systems they were accustomed to had never been real.

For several more years, the starship drifted through deep space, the children unable to take control. Most had reached sexual maturity and began reproducing. A colony within the ship began to take form. It wasn’t until overcrowding began that the former subjects of the Daedalus Initiative’s experiment started searching through the ship for more space. It was then by accident that they discovered the areas of the ship that had been kept secret. The corpses of the adult volunteers, now mostly skeletal remains, were discovered. All of their research had been wiped, so their presence was a mystery. The children learned about the Daedalus Initiative, but that was all. After some time, the children, now young adults, were able to get all of the ship’s systems back online. Unfortunately, none of them knew where they were or why they were there.

Picking up the banner of the Daedalus Initiative, the young crew, now twenty-three in number, set out to find meaning to their existence. For three hundred years this colony lived aboard the ship, developing its own customs, its own society, its own laws. Twelve generations built on hardship and discovery turned every one of these people into heroes. Their journey made them experts of space travel, exploration, diplomacy, and violence. The bonds that held them together made them stronger. Captains and officers were elected and appointed, and died to be replaced by younger and better ones with each new generation. They visited worlds and harvested materials they needed to survive and thrive in the black between stars. They developed advanced arithmetic, unlocked the mysteries of science, and wrote their own history. Using the technology of their ship, which they called the Minotaur, they retro-engineered new ships and technology to aid their expedition. They fought Vanduul raiders and traded with the Banu. It was the X’ian that kept their distance, so the Minotaur allowed them their privacy.  

Knowing almost nothing of where they came from, it was nearly an accident that the Minotaur found its way to UEE space. Funneled there between the boundaries of Xi’an and Vanduul space, the Daedalus Initiative finally found its origin, but it was never their home. After three hundred years, in the year 2943, the Minotaur and its crew finally found where they had begun. The original Daedalus Initiative, the one that had put those children on their path all those generations ago, no longer existed. Its organizers had faded away over the years. No one left at the university had a record of their experiments, but evidence did show that the Minotaur and its children were not their only subjects.

When the Vanduul War broke out in 2945, the Daedalus Initiative allied itself with the UEE military. It was instrumental in the war effort, and the UEE awarded the Daedalus Initiative with contracts and friendship.

The Daedalus Initiative now grows every year. It commands a formidable fleet. Its members stand in defiance of the UEE’s enemies both within and without UEE space. Its ranks bursting with brilliant engineers and fearsome warriors, the Daedalus Initiative is officially a private entity devoted to the support of economic and scientific advancement, and the development of new defense strategies integral to the security of UEE territory.